Chris Garley
18 April 2024Chris joined HFW in 2008 and, after training for a period in Hong Kong, qualified into HFW’s London Shipping Litigation team in 2010, advising on both “wet” and “dry” disputes. His primary focus is on issues arising from marine casualties including collisions, fires and groundings. In recent years, Chris has been heavily involved in a number of high profile containership casualties arising from carriage of declared and undeclared dangerous goods. In doing so, he has acted for Owners and also for Charterers advising on all aspects of the casualty response including issues including of limitation of liability, jurisdiction, salvage and general average as well as the underlying liabilities, both in tort and related contracts of carriage/VSA/slot charter arrangements, including unseaworthiness and unsafe port claims. In 2016 Chris increased his “dry” experience by completing a secondment to the legal department of a major German power company based in the UK, advising the freight trading and chartering operations desks. During that period he advised on a range of issues from the initial chartering process, through to speed and performance claims, bill of lading disputes, sales contracts, letters of indemnity, and off-spec cargo claims. Christopher is qualified in England and Wales.
