Kate Lister

Although occasionally disputes are inevitable, a large part of Kate’s practice is assisting clients in the avoidance of disputes. This is through acting as project counsel; providing early, pragmatic and strategic advice at all level of her client’s business in order to prevent the unnecessary escalation and expense of disputes.

However, when a dispute is unavoidable, Kate will work closely with her clients to understand the technical issues at hand and her client’s overall commercial aims, to devise and deliver a strategy for the cost-efficient resolution of the issues. In this area, the majority of Kate’s practice focusses on the resolution of complex and high value construction and engineering disputes. Kate routinely advise and acts on a wide range of contracts, including bespoke FIDIC, IChemE, NEC3 and NEC4 and JCT in a range of forums, including adjudication, litigation, arbitration, mediation and early neutral evaluation.

Kate is notably experienced in running complex, high value, multi-party, litigation in the Technology and Construction Court, with a track record of achieving results for clients. Kate has been ranked by Chambers and Partners for the last five years and is praised for “offering an excellent level of support” for clients and her ability to “provides detailed legal advice on complex areas”. Her clients praise Kate for her “pragmatic” advice and "tenacity" in getting a positive result.

Experience

• Leading a multi-disciplinary, multi-jurisdictional team in the resolution of complex international supply chain disputes which threatened the timely completion of a North Sea offshore wind farm. Devising and implementing a strategy which lead to the successful resolution of those disputes, timely completion of the project and saving the contractor client in excess of GBP 10m in potential delay damages.

• Advising a Tier 1 main contractor regarding the interpretation of delay provisions under an NEC3 Option C for a major rail infrastructure project, as against the employing joint venture, and the impact on the recoverability of costs incurred. Providing and implementing a strategy to maximise recovery, identifying early on where elements of the claim were better focused on to achieve a beneficial settlement position. As a result of this strategy the client received payment of over 80% of its total claim.

• Acting on behalf of an international EPC Contractor in the conduct of the defence of a GBP 130m+ claim and associated GBP 30m+ counterclaims in a multi-party litigation stemming from a claim for wrongful termination of the EPC contractor’s employment under a bespoke IChemE Red Book.

• Representing a contractor in the nuclear industry in adjudication relating to 11 alleged compensation events under a NEC Subcontract Option A. Subsequently advising on separate settlement discussions, resulting in a multi-million pound saving to the client.

• Acting on behalf of a subsea cabling contractor in the pursuit of an unforeseeable ground conditions claim for an offshore wind farm.

• Advising on delay claims in relation to a turbine jacket manufacturer based in China. Delay to the turbine threatened the timely completion of the entire offshore wind farm and it was critical to the client to secure the jackets as soon as possible, with minimal exposure. Working with colleagues across the globe, we successfully negotiated the release of the final jackets and the timely completion of their installation. This saved the client upwards of GBP 20m in potential upstream, delay damages exposure.

• Conduct of a GBP 22 million, four-party litigation relating to the wrongful termination of an EPC contract in the High Court of England and Wales.

• Advising a main contractor client on a GBP 150 million gasification process plant.

• Conducting a series of adjudications, upstream and downstream, on behalf an international EPC Contractor relating to a GBP 110 million MBT energy-from-waste plant.

• Advising a main EPC contractor client in relation to delay claims at a GBP 90 million gasification facility.