Directors

• Edward Corbett
• Stephen Mangan
• Andrew Tweeddale

Consultants

• George Rosenberg
• Tony Blackler
• Elizabeth Slattery
• Dominic Helps

Other lawyers

• Victoria Tyson
• Taner Dedezade
• Natalie Matharu

Directors

Edward Corbett is the managing director of Corbett & Co, a practice specialising in international construction law.

After studying law at Oxford University, he qualified as a barrister and practised for a short while before joining Masons in the City of London as a specialist construction lawyer. After joining Masons in 1984, he worked exclusively in construction law. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1988.

His experience includes contract drafting and procurement strategy as well as ICC arbitration, litigation and ADR. He has worked for contractors as well as for employers, funders and consultants. He has advised the World Bank on its Standard Bidding Documents for smaller contracts and numbers amongst his clients the European Investment Bank.

He regularly advises some of the world's major contractors and his current caseload involves projects in Europe, Africa, South-East Asia, the Indian Sub-continent and the Middle East.

He has an MSC in construction law and arbitration from Kings College and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

He has experience as an arbitrator and adjudicator on both UK and international disputes. He is an accredited mediator. He is on FIDIC's lists of mediators and adjudicators and is trained as a TeCSA adjudicator.

Edward is the author of FIDIC 4th - A Practical Legal Guide and many articles and papers dealing with aspects of international construction contracts.

He has lectured extensively on construction law and in particular on FIDIC's standard forms of contract.

He was co-chair of the International Bar Association's international construction projects committee and is currently a member of a Working Groups of FIDIC that drafted the 1999 Short Form of Contract, the Dredging Contract and the Red Book Subcontract. Corbett & Co is an affiliate member of FIDIC.

STEPHEN MANGAN - Director
BA, MSc (Construction Law and Arbitration), FCIArb

Stephen Mangan is a solicitor at Corbett & Co.

Following a career in public housing, he trained with Warner Cranston, joining its Construction Litigation department upon qualification.

During four years and a half years with Warner Cranston, Steve worked on a variety of large-value construction disputes and professional indemnity claims against construction professionals.

Since joining Corbett & CO in 2000, he has dealt with UK disputes in the Technology and Construction Court, and with international disputes both in arbitration and in Dispute Adjudication Board (DAB) proceedings.  Steve has advised on a variety of international construction and civil engineering disputes in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.  These include a mineral ore processing plant in Uganda, several large hotel and commercial developments in Egypt and the Sudan, and road and infrastructure projects in Uganda and Bulgaria.  Steve has also advised clients on project procurement and the negotiation and drafting of major construction contracts.

He has an MSc in Construction Law and Arbitration from King's College, London, and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

Stephen is a Spanish speaker.

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ANDREW TWEEDDALE - Director
MSc (Prop), LLB (Hons), Dip Int Com Arb, Dip Arb, FCI Arb

Andrew Tweeddale is a solicitor-advocate and chartered arbitrator specialising in international construction law.

He qualified as a barrister in 1992 and practised for a short while in London before joining Corbett & Co in 1995. He has since worked exclusively in construction and engineering law. In 1999 he moved to top city law firm Norton Rose before returning to Corbett & Co in 2005.

Andrew has dealt with most of the standard form contracts for building and civil engineering works. He has been involved with drafting construction contracts, warranties and stepped dispute resolution provisions. He has acted in major international and domestic arbitration, litigation, adjudication, mediation and expert determination. He has worked for architects, engineers, contractors, sub-contractors, employers and government bodies.

He has an MSc in construction and property law and Diplomas in international commercial arbitration and domestic arbitration.

Andrew is the author of A Practical Approach to Arbitration Law and Arbitration of Commercial Disputes - International and English Law and Practice.

He has lectured on construction law at South Bank University and given seminars on arbitration, adjudication and other forms of ADR.

He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and the Society of Construction Lawyers.

Consultants

GEORGE ROSENBERG (Consultant)
LLB Hons FCI Arb Solicitor Advocate All Higher Courts

George Rosenberg was born in New Zealand and has dual New Zealand and German nationality.

He qualified as a barrister and solicitor in New Zealand and practiced there mainly as a barrister for 10 years before leaving New Zealand to join the Hong Kong Government’s legal department. He spent 6 years with the Government and eventually specialized in construction law, becoming head of the construction law division in the Department and then being appointed head of the special legal office established to support the new Chek Lap Kok airport project – at that time the largest airport project in the World. He left the Government to become head of the construction department in the Hong Kong office of a leading City law firm. In 1996 he came to the UK and joined Shadbolt & Co., a leading construction law firm where he remained until 2006. He established the firm’s Athens office and worked in Greece for 2 years.

His experience includes drafting and negotiating contracts for civil engineering and construction projects, acting as advocate in domestic, ICC and EDF arbitration as well as litigation and ADR. He acts as advocate as well as solicitor. He has acted for governments, developers, service providers, contractors and consultants. He has experience in PFI in the UK. Hong Kong and in Greece. He has been appointed as arbitrator in international disputes.

George has acted for clients throughout Europe, in Africa, the Middle East and the Far East.

He holds the still rare qualification of Solicitor-Advocate All Higher Courts which gives him the same rights of audience in the English Courts as a barrister.

George is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Member of the London International Court of Arbitration. He is admitted as a lawyer in New Zealand, Hong Kong, England and Wales and is a member of the Barreau de Nice in France. He was formerly a member of the Athens Bar Association.

He has written and spoken extensively on a wide range of construction law related issues.

TONY BLACKLER - (Consultant)
B.A., LL.B. (Cantab), MCIArb.

Tony is the sole principal of 'Tony Blackler – Construction Law' and is available to assist the practice from time to time on specialist areas.

Tony Blackler took a first class honours degree in law at Cambridge University, and was admitted as a solicitor in 1967. In 1972 he became a partner at solicitors Rowe & Maw, and founded its construction department. By the time he left the firm in 1988 the Construction Department was recognised as one of the leading groups in its field, comprising five partners and twelve assistant solicitors handling a mix of contentious and non-contentious work.

He moved to Macfarlanes in 1988 to pursue a similar course, developing a specialist Construction Group from a strong property client base together with clients of his own introduction.

During his career he has experienced the construction industry in all its diverse sectors, representing consultants, developer/owners and contractors, undertaking both contentious and transactional work, both domestic and international. He trained as a mediator in the early 90’s and has undertaken some substantial mediations since then.

He is familiar with all the domestic UK forms of contract, as well as those used internationally, particularly FIDIC and NEC, and has worked on a variety of PFI contracts mainly in the health and education sectors.

He has had a particular involvement in management forms of contracting and co-authored a book on the JCT Management Contract in the late 80’s. He has acted for clients and firms pioneering construction management systems of procurement, and drafted bespoke documentation for CM systems.

He has advised on contractual issues for organisations as diverse as the International Federation of Consulting Engineers, the Construction Industry Council, the Association of Consultant Architects, the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Society of Chief Architects for Local Authorities. Until recently he was a member of the New Engineering Contract Panel and assisted with the production of the third edition of their contract, now in use for the Olympic Project.

He has always taken a keen interest in training and has devised courses for use within law firms and regularly gives presentations and seminars for lawyers and practitioners in the industry.

ELIZABETH SLATTERY - (Consultant)
LLB (Hons)

After studying law at Kings College, University of London, Liz completed her training at Beale & Company and continued her career there for several years, practising in contentious construction on behalf of professionals and their insurers and becoming a Partner in 1992. She then joined the legal group at Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Ltd in 1995 and was responsible for the establishment of an in-house dispute resolution service for disputes predominantly involving the ICE 5th and 6th contracts and the NEC and handled several cases in the High Court and arbitrations in-house. As part of the in-house team she was also involved in the lengthy and ultimately successful negotiations and dispute avoidance measures which resulted from the Heathrow tunnel collapse in 1994.

Liz joined Shadbolt & Co in 1999, becoming an Associate in 2006. She has acted on behalf of clients in the UK, Europe and East Africa and has handled a wide variety of multi-party construction disputes, both High Court litigation and arbitrations involving the ICE, JCT and FIDIC contracts, including in particular multi-million pound disputes concerning the construction of an extension to a dam in Uganda and a waste water treatment plant in Liverpool, together with a high profile case on the effect of concurrent delays in a construction contract. She was also involved in some of the earliest reported cases on the enforcement of adjudication decisions, notably FW Cook Limited v Shimizu (UK) Limited, Edmund Nuttall Limited v Sevenoaks District Council and Edmund Nuttall Limited v RG Carter Limited.

Since becoming a consultant at Corbett& Co in 2008 Liz has been involved in two multi million pound disputes arising under FIDIC contracts.

DOMINIC HELPS - (Consultant)
B.A.

Dominic Helps, who joined our team in February 2010 from Shadbolt LLP, is ranked in Chambers in the top category of leading individuals.

He left Cambridge University with a first class honours degree in History and, having  worked as a staff writer on Management Today and Engineering Today, he returned to Cambridge to study law.

Having trained and qualified as a solicitor with Linklaters & Paines, he resolved to specialise in contentious work and particularly in the construction and engineering sectors and moved to Lovell White & King first in Hong Kong and then in London. He was involved in a wide range of contentious and non-contentious construction and engineering work.

In 1996 he joined specialist construction law practice Shadbolt & Co as a partner in the Construction and Engineering Unit where he remained until the firm was dissolved in February 2010.

He has very considerable experience of handling and resolving construction and engineering disputes of all sizes in litigation, arbitration, adjudication and mediation for owners, general and specialist contractors and consultants. Over the last 10 years he has acted for parties in numerous adjudications and enforcement cases. More recently, he has acted in many successful mediations often involving substantial and complex disputes.

Major domestic disputes with which he has been involved include CTRL, acting for the BBC on the Mailbox Development project, the Heathrow Tunnel collapse and the Coolkeeragh power station in Northern Ireland. Leading cases include London Borough of Merton v Stanley Hugh Leach, Henry Boot v Malmaison, Crest Homes v Marks and, on the adjudication side, RG Carter v Edmund Nuttall, Outwing v Randall, Sherwood v Casson and the A & D Maintenance case.

He has acted on a number of major international disputes including disputes concerning the refurbishment of a Soviet era power station in Bulgaria, the construction of an ammonia plant in Venezuela and the diversion of the Sungai Sarawak river in Malaysia. He has considerable experience of ICC and other international arbitrations.

He is a TeCSA accredited adjudicator and  a CEDR and TeCSA trained mediator.

He is Social Secretary of TeCSA (the Technology and Construction Solicitors Association) and Chairman of the Law Courts Branch of the Arbitration Club. He represented TeCSA on the Latham Working Party tasked with advising the Government on the review of the Construction Act and currently represents TeCSA on the Construction Umbrella Bodies Adjudication Task Group on the implementation of the changes to the primary and secondary legislation.

He is a regular contributor to Building Magazine and contributes to Construction Law Journal of which he is a co-editor.  He is a regular speaker at in-house and external courses and conferences. 

Other Lawyers

VICTORIA TYSON
MSc, BSc (Hons), FCIArb, CIOB

Victoria joined Corbett & Co. in 2003, and is a solicitor qualified to practise in England and Wales and Hong Kong.  She has 12 years experience in construction and engineering disputes.

Victoria obtained a BSc (Hons) in Building Management Design and Construction and was awarded the Tolent Construction prize for economics and finance before embarking on her legal training which she completed with Masons in London and Hong Kong.  She spent a total of four years with Masons before joining the Construction Group of Herbert Smith’s Litigation and Arbitration Department in Hong Kong where she spent two further years. 

Victoria has an MSc in Construction Law and Dispute Resolution from King's College, London and has completed the Society of Construction Law advocacy training course.

Victoria is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and a member of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), the Dispute Resolution Board Foundation (DRBF), the International Bar Association (IBA), King’s College Construction Law Association (KCCLA), and the Society of Construction Law (SCL).

Since joining Corbett & Co, Victoria has worked on various international disputes, including the following:

• Acting for the claimant contractors in an ICC arbitration to settle disputes arising from a US$14.6 million contract (based on the FIDIC Yellow Book) for the design, supply and erection of the steel structure for a steel manufacturing plant in Egypt.
• Acting for the claimant contractors in an UNCITRAL arbitration to settle delay and defect disputes arising from contracts totalling €28.5 million for the construction of a four star hotel in Ukraine.  
• Acting for the claimant joint venture contractor in an ongoing ICC arbitration to settle delay and disruption disputes arising from a US$35.8 million contract for the construction of a new unleaded gasoline/low sulphur gas oil plant in Abu Dhabi.

• Acting for the respondent employer in an ongoing ICC arbitration in relation to disputes arising out of a €3.1 million FIDIC Blue Book dredging contract in Albania.

• Acting for the claimant employer in an ongoing arbitration administered by the Court of International Commercial Arbitration attached to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania and Bucharest to settle dispute arising from the termination of a €6 million consultancy agreement for the design, review and supervision of roads in Romania.

• Advising the referring contractor in respect of Dispute Adjudication Board proceedings to settle disputes over additional works arising from a €2.5 million contract (based on the FIDIC Yellow Book) for the decommissioning, decontamination and demolition of a chemical plant in Cyprus.

• Acting for the responding employer in Dispute Adjudication Board proceedings to settle disputes arising from a €62 million amended FIDIC Red Book contract for the construction of luxury apartments in Romania.

• Acting for the responding employer in Dispute Adjudication Board proceedings to settle disputes arising from a €21 million amended FIDIC Red Book Contract for the construction of roads in Romania.

• Advising the responding owner in respect of Dispute Review Board proceedings to settle disputes arising from the construction of a US$2 billion hydroelectrical project in Iceland.
• Advising a design team in relation to an insurance dispute arising out of damage to a concrete lined headrace tunnel for a hydroelectric power project in Indonesia built under an amended FIDIC Red Book contract.
• Advising one partner of a joint venture in respect of price adjustment disputes with the employer arising from a contract for engineering and consultancy services on a US$1,140 million water supply project in Turkey.
• Advising various employers in Gibraltar in respect of amended JCT contracts where the contractor had gone into receivership.

TANER DEDEZADE
MSc, LLB(Hons), DipICA, FCIArb, Barrister

Taner Dedezade is a barrister specialising exclusively in international construction law. He has worked mostly on projects utilising the FIDIC form of contract, particularly the Conditions of Contract for Works of Civil Engineering Construction 4th edition and Conditions of Contract for Construction First Edition (the Red Book). He was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1996 and was in independent practice as a barrister for just over ten years.

Since joining Corbett & Co, Taner has been involved in the following projects:

• acting on behalf of an African government against a multi-national joint venture consisting of well-known French and South African contractors in an International Arbitration under the Procedural Rules of Conciliation and Arbitration of Contracts financed by the European Development Fund. The dispute, worth €70m, concerned the termination of a major EDF road rehabilitation project, governed by the EDF standard conditions of contract (similar to FIDIC). Taner assisted in the final stages of this arbitration shortly after he joined;
• acting for the Contractor responsible for a multimillion Euro refurbishment of a flagship hotel in a major Eastern European capital city. The project was let under 4 separate contracts subject to 1 overarching contract. Difficulties arose and the project became delayed. The principle issues were whether time had been put at large, the effect of a suspension of work by the Contractor in accordance with the contract terms, and the Employer's termination (and subsequent purported re-instatement) of the contract. There were also substantial claims against the Contractor for defects in the design of the structural and mechanical and electrical works and failure to achieve the acoustic specification. Taner assisted in the final stages of this arbitration shortly after he joined;
• acting for the Ministry of Transport of a former Soviet Republic Country in relation to a road project. Taner drafted submissions pursuant to Article 6.2 of the ICC Rules on the jurisdiction of the ICC.
• acting for the State in disputes arising in relation to roads in Eastern Europe. Many claims have been through the DAB process and are now referred to ICC Arbitration. Taner has been involved from the early stages of the DAB process having drafted much of the pleadings and undertaken advocacy in the DAB proceedings. In one of the cases, at arbitration stage, he has recently completed and won detailed submissions on jurisdiction relating to Clause 20.
• advising on contractual issues in relation to a dredging project.
• acting for the developer in connection with defects in a large public housing development in Southern Europe. Issues concerning latent defects and a dispute arising as a result of defective design and installation of fixtures.
• acting for a Contractor in a road project claim for a sum of in excess of €50M referred to ICC Arbitration.

Taner has an MSc in Construction Law and Dispute Resolution from Kings College, London. He was also awarded the Bickerdike Allen prize for the best performance in the MSc first-year taught modules. His thesis covered the topic of time-bar clauses and the prevention principle. Taner now acts as a tutor and dissertation supervisor on the MSC course.

Taner has a diploma in International Commercial Arbitration from Queen Mary College, London and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He is a member of the International Bar Association (IBA), Technology and Construction Bar Association (TECBAR), Adjudication Society (AS), King's College Construction Law Association (KCCLA), Society of Construction Law (SCL), and the Young LCIA International Arbitration Group.

Taner is the co-author (the chapter on ADR) of 'Service Charges and Management: Law and Practice', Sweet & Maxwell 2006 and has an article published in the International Arbitration Law Review: "Are you in? or Are you out? An analysis of section 69 of the English Arbitration Act 1996: Appeals on a Question of Law" International Arbitration Law Review Vol 9 Issue 2, April 2006. He has also written book reviews and case reviews in Construction Law International and the International Arbitration Law Review.

As a barrister in independent practice, Taner was appointed as Junior Counsel to the Crown's Civil Litigation Panel from 2000-2007 and was instructed by the Treasury Solicitor acting for various government departments particularly in commercial, employment and directors disqualification matters. He also practiced in Local Government/Housing work acting for numerous local authorities. He made regular appearances in the County and High Courts (including TCC) and Court of Appeal.

NATALIE MATHARU
BSc (Hons), PgDL

Natalie Matharu is an assistant solicitor at Corbett & Co.

She has a BSc honours degree in Biomedical Science from King’s College London and a Diploma in Law from The College of Law.

Natalie trained at a niche London firm in the property, insurance and construction group and was admitted as a solicitor in 2007.  

Natalie has experience of contentious construction acting for the commercial sector and an energy utility in dealing with technical claims of up to multi million claim values. Natalie has acted for building owners, contractors and sub-contractors and she has both claimant and defendant experience.

Her practice includes latent defect disputes arising by way of defective commercial building design and installation of fixtures.

Natalie’s construction disputes experience includes mediation and litigation in the Technology and Construction Court.

Natalie has also dealt with property damage matters with an engineering element and insurance policy business disputes. She has experience of claims in the Mercantile Court, Chancery Division of the High Courts of Justice and the Court of Appeal.