Damian Honey

Damian joined HFW in 1997. Following a secondment for the commodities legal team at Enron in 2000 Damian returned to HFW and focussed on a commodities practice in the energy and natural resources sector. Damian advises commodity traders, producers, financiers and insurers on all aspects of their business, including in particular physical and financial sale and purchase, finance and transportation. He assists and represents clients in dispute resolution in commodities and freight related matters. He specialises in particular in energy and bulk commodities and metals, working with clients on matters such as trade finance (prepayments and repos) sale and purchase documents (MSPAs, GTCs SPAs), commodity derivatives, and operational and legal issues that arise day to day in trading businesses. He has been involved in a significant number of issues which have arisen out of the changes in the commodity markets, for example: LME warehousing queues, coal price fall in Southern China in the summer of 2012, MF Global, Qingdao and changing methodologies in the pricing of iron ore and alumina. Damian also works on a variety of disputes matters. His work in dispute resolution is focused on three areas: International Arbitration (IA), Banking Litigation and Fraud claims. In IA, Damian has experience of a variety of institutional rules: LCIA, ICC, DIFC/LCIA, as well as arbitration under UNCITRAL rules and ad hoc arbitrations. His experience in Banking Litigation includes disputes arising under bilateral and syndicated loans, standby and documentary LCs, and corporate and personal guarantees. In fraud related matters, Damian has a particular focus on the Middle East, having successfully represented clients in their pursuit of fraud claims. Since 2009, Damian has been involved in pursuing claims against the Al Gosaibi partnership.