ABOUT ME

Jeremy Winter is an independent arbitrator, adjudicator and dispute review board member. He is sitting or has sat as arbitrator, appointed both by institutions and at the recommendation of major international law firms, in cases under the DIAC, ADCCAC, Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, ICC, LCIA, DIFC-LCIA, NAI and UNCITRAL arbitration rules.He has hade over 40 appointments. With cooperation from the parties, those arbitrations in which he has participated which have proceeded to a full hearing have usually been concluded within around a year of his appointment, with awards delivered within a matter of weeks of exchange of final submissions. He has also acted as adjudicator (appointed by TeCSA and the LCIA), and has acted as chair of a Dispute Adjudication Board on an important project in Dubai.

The COVID pandemic has had a major effect on the conduct of arbitration hearings. Jeremy has become quite comfortable with virtual and paperless hearings, conducted without any technical problems from his home office. 

Prior to setting up as an independent dispute resolver in 2015, Jeremy was for many years a partner in the London office of an international law firm. During his law firm career, his practice was heavily focussed on representing clients in the resolution of disputes on construction and engineering projects around the world. Predominantly, this was by means of international arbitration, but also by litigation, adjudication, DRBs and other forms of dispute resolution process. He is very familiar with the major forms of engineering and construction contract, particularly FIDIC, the ICE/NEC forms, and the IChemE forms.

He was admitted as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales in 1979. This was followed by admissions in the Supreme Courts of the states of New South Wales and Victoria in Australia. He was one of the first solicitors to be admitted as a Solicitor Advocate in the higher civil courts of England and Wales. He is also a registered practitioner of the Dubai International Financial Centre Court in the UAE. He graduated with an LLB in law from the University of Warwick in 1975.

He was made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2014. He is also a Companion of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineers, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors, a Fellow of the Geological Society, a member of the Society of Construction Law and a member of the Technology and Construction Solicitors Association.

 

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Name

Jeremy B Winter

Address

London, UK

Phone

+44 7778 209807 or +44 1732 750337

Email

jeremy.winter@jeremybwinter.com

“Incredibly concise and commercial approach.”

The Chambers UK Directory

GEOGRAPHICAL EXPERIENCE

Geographical experience

Jeremy Winter's experience has covered work for clients and projects in over 30 countries around the world.

Middle East

Jeremy has acted in disputes concerning projects throughout the Gulf states, including:

  • Power and process plants and mass transit projects in Saudi Arabia;
  • Gas gathering centre in Kuwait;
  • Sporting complex in Dubai
  • Oilfield services contracts in Iraq;
  • Water treatment plants in Qatar;
  • Power plants, hotels and other infrastructure projects in the UAE (Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Ras al Khaimah).
 
Africa
  • Acting for contractor in arbitration concerning the construction of composting plants in Libya;
  • Acting for contractor in arbitration concerning water treatment plants on the NIle in Egypt;
  • Representing main contractor in arbitration with sub-contractor concerning gas pipeline project in Nigeria;
  • Arbitrations concerning road projects in Tanzania, Kenya and Lesotho;
  • Arbitration concerning sulphuric acid plant in South Africa.
CIS
  • Representing contractor in dispute arising from the collapse of cold storage warehouse in Moscow, Russia;
  • Acting for contractor in another case concerning a structural collapse, this time of a residential development, also in Moscow;
  • Acting for contractor in dispute concerning Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey;
  • Representing contractor in arbitration over airport in Kazakhstan.
Europe
  • Many cases before the English court and in adjudication concerning commercial developments, ports and harbours, gas-fired power plants, waste to energy, mechanical and electrical installations, lifts and elevators;
  • Arbitration under NAI (Dutch) arbitration rules concerning test rig for offshore decommissioning vessel
  • Arbitration concerning boiler modernisation of coal-fired power plant in a part of former Yugoslavia
  • Advisory role in arbitration concerning the construction of a nuclear power plant in Finland;
  • Litigation concerning the use of back-up compressors for a gas pipeline between Algeria and Spain.
Asia
  • Acting for supplier in arbitration relating to supply of marble processing plant in India;
  • Dealing with dispute over power plant in Bangladesh;
  • Representing and advising Japanese, Korean and Chinese clients on their projects and investments in the Middle East and North Africa.
Latin and Central America
  • Representing port operator in arbitration against contractor concerning the construction of a container terminal in Panama;
  • Acting for a state owned oil company in litigation arising from the sinking of a semi-submersible rig offshore Brazil;
  • Acting for the purchaser of oil and gas assets in Argentina.

“... has a strong international element to his practice, with recent instructions relating to projects disputes in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands and Brazil, as well as the UK.”

Chambers UK Directory - 2012

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

Civil engineering

Jeremy has handled many cases concerning unforeseen ground conditions, resulting in a good understanding of geotechnical issues. Numerous road-building cases made him familiar with heavy plant operation, crushing equipment, sourcing suitable base layer materials, achieving required levels compaction, the effect of adverse weather, cut to fill balance, concrete structures etc.

 
Power generation

Jeremy's experience includes the effects of catastrophic blade failure in a gas turbine, excessive noise levels in turbines, construction of steam turbine halls, modernisation of boilers in coal-firewelding of high-pressure pipelines.

Ports and harbours

Jeremy has acted in arbitrations and other disputes concerning: operation of container cranes and RTGs, construction (and collapse) of dock retaining walls, cathodic protection of steel reinforcement in marine environment.

Water treatment

Jeremy is familiar with water and sewage treatment processes, including reverse osmosis treatment of sea water, functioning of pumps, and failure of coatings on concrete tanks.

Oil and gas

Jeremy's work has involved knowledge and understanding of gas compressors, oil and gas pipelines, offshore oil platforms, drilling rigs. Also contractual disputes under JOAs and PSAs. From this he has experience of welding issues.

Cement production

Jeremy has handled disputes concerning the failure of mechanical crushing equipment and the cause of an explosion in a cement plant.

Industry/Sector experience

Jeremy has experience of a wide range of technical disputes in the construction and engineering business. This knowledge and experience puts him in a good position to grasp quickly technical issues he has not encountered before.

“Quick, sharp, amiable and diplomatic”

Legal 500

DELAY & QUANTUM

Delay and quantum

A substantial proportion of disputes on construction and engineering projects result from time and cost overruns, and contractual responsibility for them. Jeremy's career has given him a great depth of experience of the issues that arise in these cases. That experience led him to conceive the idea of, and then to chair the drafting of, the SCL Delay and Disruption Protocol, which was published in 2002. He was a member of the SCL committee which produced a revised and updated version of the Protocol in 2017. The Protocol provides guidance on recurring issues that arise in cases concerned with delay, for example: who owns the float, what effect does concurrent delay have on entitlement to extensions of time and prolongation costs, are global claims acceptable, and what the different delay analysis methods are. Some parts of the Protocol are now accepted norms. Some are more controversial - but the Protocol has at the very least served to generate intensive debate.

Jeremy is familiar with the operation of project management software such as Primavera and MS Project, and the need to inspect and understand the logic and dependencies of all programmes/ schedules, including those used to support claims for extension of time.

He was an early mover within the legal profession in recognising that litigation and arbitration are projects, which need to be managed and controlled like a construction project, as to duration, cost and quality. This experience makes him determined to ensure that arbitrations for which he is responsible are conducted as quickly, efficiently and cheaply as is consistent with producing an enforceable award.

Quantum - while legal, contractual and technical issues may take centre stage in construction disputes, they are nearly always about money. Jeremy's lengthy career has led him often to look first at the quantum of the claim, and certainly never to leave it as an afterthought. He engages himself deeply in the quantum of claims, and does not simply turn this over to experts.

“One of the sharpest and finest brains in the industry”

Chambers UK Directory

WRITING & SPEAKING

Writing & speaking

Jeremy has been speaking and writing on developments in law and practice relating to construction contracts for his entire career. For many years, he was a legal contributor to Construction News. He has lectured widely in the UK and abroad, including in Brazil, India, Russia and Korea. He has conducted numerous in house training courses.

Here are some of his articles:

Awarding costs in adjudication - a 2018 update of an article in Civil Engineering Surveyor in January 2016 to reflect recent decision about recovery of costs under Late Payment Interest legislation. Read the article here

Hojgaard v E.On - a case under English about contractual responsibility for failure of grouted connections in wind turbine foundations. The article considers legal and technical issues arising from the case and from the applicable standard, DNV-OS-J101. Read the article here. The original article was published in the Civil Engineering Surveyor Magazine. 

Serial adjudications under UK adjudication legislation (in the Adjudication Society newsletter). Read the article here

 

 

“Clients appreciate his commercial approach and he is noted by sources to be amongst the most active and effective lawyers in the sector.”

Chambers UK Directory - 2012