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Zach is a Solicitor in our Commercial Litigation team. He is an experienced litigator, acting for a variety of clients across a number of sectors on high-value and complex disputes. Zach trained at a boutique commercial firm in Leeds, before spending over 3 years at a global top 10 international law firm in the commercial dispute resolution team, part of the UK's largest litigation practice.

Zach assists with a broad range of matters but has particular experience dealing with shareholder/partnership disputes, contractual claims, Technology, Media and Telecoms disputes along with data privacy breaches, financial services litigation, employment related restrictive covenant issues and property related disputes. He has also advised businesses on risk management and mitigation strategies to reduce exposure and deal swiftly with potential exposure.

He has acted for organisations across a number of sectors, including TMT, sports, education, consumer, industrials, transport, built-environment and finance. Zach’s down to earth personality and practical and commercial approach enables him to easily build relationships and provide pragmatic advice to clients. He regularly supports private individuals and key stakeholders, from in-house counsel in multi-national corporates and shareholders in SMEs, to MDs in small limited companies and sole traders.

Experience

Examples of Zach’s recent experience include:

  • Instructed by a global data and analytics company in the space services sector to defend multiple arbitration claims related to satellite services agreements.
  • Advising a director and shareholder in the child care sector in respect of a significant breach of contract claim, involving complex issues of contractual interpretation.
  • Assisting a technology, product and manufacturing company pursue various contractual claims for breach of exclusivity and distribution agreements.
  • Acting for a company specialising in hiring remotely operated sub-sea vehicles and related support services defend a claim for breach of a consultancy agreement and/or the Commercial Agents Regulations. A highly favourable settlement for the client was achieved.
  • Instructed by a top-rated research University to defend a claim valued in excess of £35m related to an allegation of fraudulent breach of a research agreement.
  • Acting for businesses and an education institution defend multi-million pound shareholder claims related to share purchase options.
  • Regularly acting for a number of education, retail and consumer sector clients handling data privacy disputes, ranging from DSAR related complaints, to accidental one-off data breaches and claims arising from large scale cyber-attacks.
  • Routinely assisting one of the world’s largest online retailers defend and manage a variety of buyer claims and data privacy related disputes.
  • Acting for financial institutions defending large-scale PPI and solar panel mis-selling claims.
  • Instructed on multiple IT disputes for a number of clients across a variety of sectors, including system outages, software licensing, SaaS and IT performance disputes.
  • Pursuing a claim on behalf of a global logistics and international shipping company related to the procurement and purchase of PPE during the covid-19 pandemic, and negotiating a favourable settlement.
  • Successfully acting for two defendants in a significant £5.5m claim involving breach of contract and/or directors’ duties arising out of a joint-venture agreement in the natural resources sector.
  • Acting for an international automotive company in various matters including IP/trademark, shareholder, data privacy and consumer goods disputes.
  • Advising an expert building services group in relation to a £1m plus breach of contract/directors’ duty claim.
  • Pursuing complex debt related claims on behalf of private individuals and business across a variety of sectors.

Sports

As a passionate sports fan, Zach was eager to combine this with his education and career. At university, he studied aspects of sports history and governance at the International Centre for Sports History and Culture, wrote a prize-winning dissertation on football governance and geo-politics and was awarded top of his class in the LPC Sport and Media elective.

He has continued to develop this into his practice and is now an integral member of our international sports team. His work highlights in the sports sector include:

  • Acting for a EFL Championship footballer on a critical disciplinary matter;
  • Advising a professional footballer based abroad on English FA Governing Body Endorsement Rules;
  • Acting for a professional football manager in a dispute with a Club owner; and
  • Advising an EFL football club in relation to player compensation rights.

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