Mary Gibbons

Mary Gibbons Shipping & Trade Profile

Mary Gibbons brings an unusual hands-on commercial background to her practice. After graduating from Smith College with a degree in Economics, she worked in a senior management capacity in JP Morgan in New York and in London where she was appointed Global Head of World Wide Syndicates. In 1985 following a short sabbatical and the birth of her son, she expanded her geographic base to Hong Kong where she ran her own corporate financial advisory firm, working with European companies, Hong Kong-based businesses, and Austral-Asian entities and their boards advising them on Far Eastern entry and exit strategies.

She returned to the UK in 1996 and obtained a Diploma in Law at City University, completed the Bar Vocational Course at the Inns of Court School of Law and pupillage at 3 Verulam Buildings, the Chambers of Ali Malek QC. She was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1999.

Practice Profile:

Mary focuses on commercial work principally in the areas of banking, insurance and regulatory work. Her practice extends into the related fields of professional negligence and insolvency which often require consideration in parallel. Fraud, which the accountancy firm of BDO reports reached £920 million in the six months ended May 2011, is an area in which she has especial expertise utilizing in particular her banking experience and further training in accountancy.

Mary's advocacy experience is considerable. She has substantial experience in the domestic courts as well as in mediations where she frequently represents insurers. Her commercial awareness in these forums is particularly valued by her business clients.

Shipping and International Trade

Mary is regularly instructed by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency in relation to offences under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 and its statutory instruments. Examples of her instructions include prosecutions in the courts involving:

• A collision in the Dover Straits between commercial shipping interests.
• Numerous contraventions of the ColRegs by ship owners and /or masters of their vessels which have provided the basis for civil recovery of damages between the parties.
• Numerous breaches of carriage of dangerous goods by sea and road regulations by shippers, freight forwarders and/or hauliers.
• Failures by ship owners and/or their masters of health and safety regulations in relation to the operation of vessels under their control or command.
• Mary has recently advised the next-of-kin in a claim for judicial review of a Formal Investigation into the capsizing and loss of a fishing trawler in Scotland.

In addition to a number of on-going prosecutions in these fields, she is also instructed in relation to international matters:

• Mary is currently being instructed in relation to the prosecution of a Norwegian ship management company for a number of operational breaches of its domestic safety management system.

Mary Gibbons comes from a shipping family background in the United States. She is a keen sailor although since relocating to London from Hong Kong, she has primarily concentrated her sailing in warmer waters.

Commercial Litigation

• Commercial dispute resolution - litigation, mediation and arbitration
• Construction of contracts
• Jurisdictional issues including procedural matters arising in relation to service

Mary is currently advising companies in two separate matters in multi-million pound disputes with major UK lenders arising out of interest swap arrangements under the ISDA Master Agreement. In one case the underlying primary borrowing has been repaid but the lender continues to demand payments under the interest swap agreement which has not yet reached its full term. In the second the lender has purported to terminate the facility a number of years in advance of its maturity date.

Internationally she has recently successfully advised a Middle Eastern client in relation to failed service out of the jurisdiction under the Hague Convention.

Successfully recovered fraudulently obtained assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Banking and Finance

• Commercial dispute resolution – litigation, mediation and arbitration
• Domestic and international revolving credit facilities and security arrangements
• Construction of contracts including the scope of contractual terms and conditions
• Complex mortgage claims involving fraud, void and imperfect securities and issues of set-off

Mary is currently advising a lender on unusual issues of subrogation arising out of the lenders refinancing of its own debts in circumstances where the second financing is vitiated by fraud.

Recently she has advised a lender in a pending appeal to the Court of Appeal on the effectiveness of its terms and conditions in the context of a consumer loan transaction.

Internationally she has recently advised and appeared on behalf of two Middle Eastern financial and investment companies in the Commercial Court in a dispute arising out of a murabaha facility granted by a Middle Eastern Bank for the purpose of investment in a UK listed entity.

Insurance and Re-insurance

• Construction of policies
• Policy coverage issues 
• Broker negligence

Mary is currently advising in relation to pending litigation to be brought by an insurer in a subrogation claim in the Technology and Construction Court arising out of a serious fire at its insured’s property. The matter is of general importance. It involves allegations of negligence in the provision of goods and services by an energy supplier pursuant to The Electricity and Gas (Carbon Emissions Reduction) Order 2008, a funding programme set up by the government and designed to meet international carbon reduction targets.

Mary has successfully defended an insurer in the Commercial Court against a claim brought by another insurer in relation to the alleged existence of double insurance (led by a silk in New Square Chambers).

The case involved consideration of domestic and international case law and addressed principles which have not been examined by the courts for a number of years.

Publications:

• Bills of Exchange: are there set-off defences to a call on the bill? May 2011 Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law
• Demand Guarantees and the Fraud Exception (2010) Bankers’ Law, Vol 3 Issue 4 - Steven Gee QC & Mary Gibbons
• Performance Bonds (2005) Bankers’ Law, Vol 1 Bankers’ Law Issue 1 - Steven Gee QC & Mary Gibbons

Memberships

• UK Committee on Banking Technique & Practice of the ICC UK
• The British Insurance Law Association
• COMBAR
• LCLCBA