Anthony de Garr Robinson QC

Barrister
Date of call: 1987
QC: 2006
Fax: 020 7520 4861

Tony de Garr Robinson's practice covers a broad range of commercial and chancery disciplines.  Described by Chambers UK 2013 as ‘a fantastic silk’ and by Legal 500 2013 as ‘fearless, direct and persuasive in his advocacy’, he undertakes a wide variety of High Court and appellate proceedings, offshore litigation, international arbitration and advisory work.  He also sits as an arbitrator. 

Educated at Oxford and Harvard (where he was a Kennedy Scholar), he is regularly identified as a leading practitioner in legal surveys and the legal press.  He is recommended as a ‘Leader at the Bar’ in six categories in Chambers UK 2012 (Banking & Finance; Chancery/Commercial; Commercial Dispute Resolution; Company; Fraud/Civil; and International Arbitration).

Anthony de Garr Robinson QC… is noted for ‘his fantastic ability to handle clients’.  Possessed of a ‘winning courtroom style’, he is a man whose ‘unassuming manner belies a formidable intellect’, and someone who is ‘amongst the most tactically astute lawyers’ at the Commercial Bar.  (Chambers UK 2013)

Anthony de Garr Robinson QC is ‘an exceptional advocate and draftsman’ who is ‘incredibly clever, tactically savvy and a real team player’.  (Legal 500 2013)

‘A ‘class act’ and a ‘tenacious litigator’, he ‘gains the trust of the court or tribunal instantly’.  He is an all-round commercial litigator with a truly international practice...  (Chambers UK 2012)

Anthony de Garr Robinson QC impresses with his ‘outstanding advocacy and commercially minded approach’.  One interviewee called him ‘one of the cleverest people I've ever met’ and suggested that his ‘fantastic range of experience’ enables him to handle a vast range of disputes’.  (Chambers UK 2011)

He has been admitted as a member of the Bar in the Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands and is registered as an advocate in the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts.  He has acted as an English law expert in a variety of foreign proceedings.

He is a member of the Commercial Bar Association, the Chancery Bar Association and the Commercial Fraud Lawyers Association.  In recent years, he chaired the Chancery Bar Association’s International Sub-Committee and was a member of the Bar Council’s International Committee.

His notable recent cases include:-

Antonio Gramsci Shipping Corp v Recoletos Ltd [2012] 2 Lloyd's Rep 365 (Teare J) http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2012/1887.html  

This was a shipping fraud claim in which he successfully challenged the jurisdiction of the court.  The case involved detailed consideration of whether it is possible to establish jurisdiction under Article 23 of the Brussels Regulation by “piercing the corporate veil” between a company which is a party to an English jurisdiction agreement and the company’s alleged controllers, the nature and application of the “good arguable case” test  (the so-called ‘Canada Trust gloss’) where the facts relied on to establish jurisdiction are disputed on substantial grounds and the circumstances in which a defendant can be taken to have “entered an appearance” for the purpose of Article 24 of the Brussels Regulation.

Giedo Van der Garde BV v Force India Formula One Team [2010] EWHC 2373 (QB) (Stadlen J).  http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2010/2373.html.

This important case analysed the court’s power to award substantial remedies for breach of contract where the claimant cannot prove that he has suffered consequential financial loss.  Over nearly 600 paragraphs, Stadlen J considers the principles governing the grant of restitution for total failure of consideration, the availability of ‘performance interest’ damages (i.e.  damages measured by reference to the commercial value of the missing contractual performance) and Wrotham Park damages (i.e.  damages measured by reference to the amount  that the claimant could reasonably have demanded if the defendant had asked him to give up the contractual right that the defendant  infringed).  In paragraph 561 of his judgment, Stadlen J said: 

“Mr de Garr Robinson...  bore the heavy burden of navigating me through many deep and choppy jurisprudential waters which seemed at times to cover almost every controversial aspect of the law of remedies.  it was a task he discharged with great ability and lightness of touch.”