Piers Plumptre

Practice Areas

Piers’s practice includes international arbitration and enforcement, complex commercial litigation, financial services disputes, and international fraud and white collar crime. He has extensive experience of international litigation and arbitration matters, spanning multiple jurisdictions, and in a wide variety of sectors.

Piers’s recent commercial arbitration experience includes acting for a major international contractor in a US$ 4 billion dollar ICC arbitration arising out of a Middle Eastern infrastructure project, acting for an energy company in an ICC arbitration against an African State concerning a power project, and acting for a global mining company in a US$ 2 billion LCIA arbitration (and related English High Court proceedings) concerning a long-term supply contract.

Piers has significant investment treaty arbitration experience, including ongoing representation of the former shareholders in a major oil company in a long-running US$ 6 billion UNCITRAL arbitration against the Russian Federation. Piers has also represented an Egyptian telecoms company in an ICSID arbitration against Canada, and continues to act for a major personal care products company in an investment treaty arbitration against Venezuela.

Piers also regularly acts for clients seeking to enforce arbitral awards and judgments, both in the UK and elsewhere. Examples include recently seeking and obtaining a freezing injunction and related relief from the English High Court, in connection with a US$ 550 million ICC arbitration award arising out of a mining dispute. He has also appeared (as junior to Charlie Falconer) in the recent proceedings bought by Tethyan Copper Company in the BVI (where he is admitted to practice), seeking to enforce an ICSID award worth more than US$ 6 billion against the Government of Pakistan.

Piers’s experience of offshore litigation also includes acting for UBS in BVI proceedings brought by the liquidator of the largest Madoff feeder funds to recover monies paid out during the lives of the funds; including representing UBS before the BVI High Court, the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal and the Privy Council (sitting as the ultimate BVI appellate court).

Professional Memberships

Admitted as a Barrister, England & Wales;

Admitted to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (BVI)