Charles Debattista

Practice Areas

Ranked in 2 Practice Areas, across the legal directories for 11 years

Practice areas :

All areas of shipping

o Charterparties

o Bills of Lading, and other Cargo Documents

o Contracts of Affreightment

o Shipbuilding disputes

o Freezing injunctions

Commodities and International Trade

o Sale of goods contracts for bulk commodities, dry and wet

o Sale of goods in containers

o Incoterms 2020

• Trade Finance

o Letters of Credit

o Bank Guarantees and Performance Bonds

International Arbitration

o Sits as arbitrator in the above areas

o Acts as Counsel before Tribunals in the above areas

o Litigation arising out of arbitrations, particularly challenges to Awards

Nature of Practice

Charles is regularly instructed to appear, unled, against KCs from the major commercial and shipping sets. He has also frequently led junior barristers both from 36 Stone and from other sets. Dual-qualified himself in the common law and in the civil law, he is regularly instructed from many international jurisdictions, both European and further afield like Dubai and the Far East; he has also regularly acted in conjunction with foreign-qualified lawyers in arbitrations subject to English law.

Charles is also frequently instructed as an expert witness on English law before foreign courts and arbitral tribunals seated abroad. While regularly appearing before the English Courts and in London-seated arbitrations, Charles has appeared before or sat as arbitrator in tribunals in many other jurisdictions, e.g. Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai. His arbitral practice, whether as counsel or as arbitrator, has given him a close familiarity with a wide variety of institutional rules, e.g. the LMAA, the ICC, the SCMA, the HKIAC, the Swiss Rules of Arbitration, and the Rules of the Malta Arbitration Centre.

Charles sits as sole, party-appointed and chair on tribunals frequently alongside very senior retired judges from this country and from abroad.

Career

Call and Career

• 1978 (Malta); 2005 (England and Wales as a Registered European Lawyer); post-Brexit, 2024 (England and Wales)

• FCIArb 2025

• CEDR Accredited Mediator

• After graduating first in Malta and then at Oxford, Charles started his career lecturing at the University of Southampton in 1979, taking a Chair in Commercial Law in 1999 and heading the University’s Institute of Maritime Law for six years. Charles started an energetic practice as arbitrator in 2002. He joined Stone Chambers in 2004 and moved into full-time practice at the Bar when he left academic life in 2011. Charles was Head of 36 Stone between 2019 and 2025.

• Charles is much published, in articles and in books, across his practice areas, and is best known for his books on bills of lading, on the Singapore Ship Sales Form and on the Rotterdam Rules.

• He chaired the drafting work on three versions of the ICC’s Incoterms, in 2000, 2010 and 2020.

Professional Memberships

Memberships

• LMAA, Supporting Member

• Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators

• Baltic Exchange

• British Maritime Law Association

• Middle Temple

• Shanghai International Arbitration Centre

• Singapore Chamber of Maritime Arbitrators

• Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre

• Malta Arbitration Centre

Personal

Leighton Park School, Reading; Royal University of Malta (1977 LLD); St Edmund Hall, Oxford (1979 BA; 1983 MA; Rhodes Scholar).

Languages Spoken

English, Maltese and Italian