Chambers UK Bar Awards 2024 – Monckton Chambers and two members in the shortlists

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Monckton Chambers is delighted to have been recognised and shortlisted for this year’s upcoming Chambers UK Bar Awards 2024.

The set has been nominated for ‘Competition Set of the Year’ and two members shortlisted for individual awards:

The shortlists are a result of extensive objective research and reflect achievements over the past 12 months including outstanding work, impressive strategic growth and excellence in client service. They honour the work of Chambers across the country based on the research for the most recent edition of Chambers UK Bar.

Thank you to our professional clients for their ongoing support and for taking part in this year’s research cycle and congratulations to all those shortlisted.

The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on 14th November.

The full shortlist can be seen here.

Azeem Suterwalla and Will Perry co-author public law and procurement law chapter of the Second Edition of the ‘Law of Artificial Intelligence’

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Azeem Suterwalla and Will Perry have co-authored the public law and procurement law chapter of the Second Edition of the ‘Law of Artificial Intelligence’, which is published by Sweet & Maxwell. The chapter considers the increasing use by public authorities of AI, including commercial reasons to innovate with emerging technologies. The chapter covers the current relevant legal and regulatory framework and guidance for public authorities in England and Wales. It also identifies recent proposals for changes to that framework. It is hoped that this chapter will be relevant and informative to public authorities and those delivering public functions using AI, and also to private organisations seeking to supply to the public sector. The chapter will also be useful to parties who wish to carefully scrutinise the decisions of public authorities, including in the context of judicial review and public procurement proceedings.

Monckton members appointed to Attorney General’s Panels

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We are pleased to announce that Kristina Lukacova has been successful with her application to the Attorney General’s “B” Panel, James Bourke and Jen Coyne have been promoted to the Attorney General’s “B” panel and both Andrew Macnab and Peter Mantle have received the renewal to “A” Panel status for a further 5 years.

The Attorney General maintains four advisory panels of junior counsel to undertake civil and EU work for all government departments. There are three London panels (an A panel for senior juniors, a B panel for middle juniors, a C panel for junior juniors) and a regional panel. In addition, there are three Public International Law Panels.

All appointments will commence from 1 September 2024 for five years.

The current list of Monckton Chambers panel members is:

Monckton Chambers shortlisted 17 times across 12 categories at the 2024 Legal 500 Bar Awards

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The Legal 500 Bar Awards UK seeks to recognise chambers as a whole and individuals (barristers of all levels of seniority), clerks, other chambers professionals and arbitrators from London and across England, Scotland and Wales.

The shortlist for the 2024 awards has been announced and we are delighted to have been nominated for 17 awards, across 12 categories

Congratulations to everyone that has been shortlisted! The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on the 25th September 2024.

The full shortlist can be found on the Legal 500 website here.

Lord Bellamy KC resumes practice at Monckton Chambers

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Lord Bellamy KC has resumed practice at Monckton Chambers with effect from 8th July 2024, following the end of his term as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Ministry of Justice. He will be specializing in competition and regulatory matters, with a particular focus on arbitration and mediation.

Lord Bellamy was a member of Monckton Chambers for many years until he became a judge of the European Court of First Instance (CFI), now the EU General Court, in 1992. From 1999 to 2007 he was the first President of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). After retiring from the CAT he joined Linklaters LLP, and was the Chairman of Linklaters Global Competition Practice from 2011 to 2020. He then re-joined Monckton Chambers until 2022, when he was appointed as the Minister responsible for justice affairs in the House of Lords.

Lord Bellamy is considered to be one of the most experienced competition lawyers in Europe. He co-authored the early editions of Bellamy & Child, European Union Law of Competition, now in its eighth edition.

Alastair Holder Ross and Reuben Andrews to become Monckton tenants

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The members of Monckton Chambers congratulate pupil barristers Alastair Holder Ross and Reuben Andrews on being invited to join Chambers following successful completion of pupillage, during which they have experienced a wide range of Chambers practice areas. All are delighted they have accepted. 

Alastair and Reuben will join Chambers as tenants in October 2024.

Eric Metcalfe and Jenn Lawrence appointed to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s panel of counsel

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The Equality and Human Rights Commission has announced its list of preferred Counsel, appointed to support the Commission’s equality and human rights work through strategic public interest litigation in the UK and European courts, including the European Court of Human Rights.

The Commission often intervenes, in both domestic and European courts, in cases of public importance concerning human rights breaches and breaches of the Equality Act 2010.

Eric Metcalfe has been appointed to the A panel and Jenn Lawrence has been appointed to the C panel.

The Commission stated that the appointments were made “following an open and transparent competition”.

For the full list of panel members, see here.

Jeremy McBride prepares opinion on Georgian “foreign agent” law

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Jeremy McBride has prepared an opinion on Georgia’s new Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence, adopted on 14 May, for the Expert Council on NGO law, a body of the Conference of International non-governmental organisations of the Council of Europe. The opinion examines all the provisions in the Law and their implications especially for organisations of the civil society. It considers inter alia that:

  • the purported retrospective inclusion of income received before the legislation would enter into force is clearly arbitrary in that those entities affected could not escape the obligation to register even if thereafter the income received from foreign sources became less significant;
  • there are many provisions that impose requirements to disclose personal data that have no conceivable link with the supposed objectives of the law regarding transparency of funding from foreign powers;
  • the provisions aim at establishing a monitoring mechanism which would be very extensive in its scope, affecting all civil society organisations, and be unnecessarily intrusive in its range and frequency;
  • the intended provisions for the imposition of penalties are manifestly excessive for a regulatory measure.

The opinion further states that this legislation would necessarily lead to the stigmatisation of the entities concerned by making the assertion that they are pursuing the interest of a foreign power simply because of the source of some of their income. It concludes that “There is, therefore, no justification for this law that would be consistent with European and international standards.”