Stuart Dench
Stuart Dench

 

Stuart Dench
Consultant

Stuart is a consultant in RK’s Dispute Resolution Group with over 25 years’ experience in dealing with shipping and maritime law matters, including charterparty disputes, bills of lading, ship sale and purchase disputes and acts on behalf of shipowners, charterers and commodity traders.

Stuart has recently acted in arbitrations regarding the termination of long term charters, unsafe port claims and bunker contamination claims. Stuart’s recently-reported cases include Geden Operations v Dry Bulk Handy Holding Inc (The “Bulk Uruguay”) [2014] 2 Lloyds Rep 66, Shagang South-Asia (Hong Kong) Trading Co Ltd v Daewoo Logistics [2015] Lloyds Rep 21, SDTM-CI v Continental Lines N.V. (The “Sea Miror”) [2015] EWHC 1747, MUR Joint Ventures BV v Compagnie Monegasque De Banque [2016] EWHC 3107, the “Tiger Shanghai” [2019] EWHC 3240, the “Mookda Naree” [2021] EWHC 558 and the “Maria” [2021] EWHC 2565.

Clients worked for: Tankers International LLC, Bocimar NV, FESCO, Exmar NV, MUR Shipping BV, Conti Lines NV, Integra, Canfornav, Petraco and various P&I Clubs.

Prior to qualifying as a solicitor, Stuart worked for an International Group P & I Club so has a broad experience of claims handling both within and outside a law firm. Stuart qualified in 1998 at Lawrence Graham and was at Lawrence Graham until setting up Lax & Co LLP in May 2007 with Mike Lax. Stuart is recognised in The Legal 500, UK edition (2024) for his “efficient case handling”.