Elizabeth assists clients in the energy and natural resources and commodities sectors with dispute resolution and transactional matters. She has extensive experience in the international trade and transportation of a wide range of commodities, including biofuels, coal, metals, iron ore, LNG, crude oil and oil products.
Elizabeth has received accolades from the following independent publications:
- Ranked by Chambers 2025 for Commodities: Physicals. Chambers 2025 notes that Elizabeth’s client list “boasts some impressive names across trading houses, mining companies and energy firms.”
- Ranked by Legal 500 2024 as a Leading Partner for Commodity Disputes.
- Recognised by the 2025 edition of Best Lawyers UK for International Trade Law.
- "Elizabeth combines technical legal strength with quick commercial understanding and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving." (Chambers 2025).
- "She is very reliable, intelligent and sharp. She always knows the right thing to say and is a safe pair of hands." (Chambers 2025).
- "She is an incredible practitioner for physicals knowledge." (Chambers 2025).
- A “standout practitioner” (Legal 500 2025).
- A “highly respected litigator” (Legal 500 2024).
- “Elizabeth is very prompt in understanding the issues at stake and adapting sharply to the client’s interests.” (Legal 500 2023).
Elizabeth understands the interplay between strategic, compliance and legal issues in the commodities and energy industries, in part because of her time on secondment to clients. She was seconded into a senior in-house role for six months in 2018, as the acting head of legal for a large commodities marketing and trading business. She was previously seconded to lead a legal team responsible for the establishment of a commodities trading business. In 2010, she was seconded to Morgan Stanley’s Asia commodities business.
A significant part of Elizabeth’s practice involves dispute resolution, both in international arbitration and the English Commercial Court. She has represented clients in numerous cases involving a wide range of issues including fraud, sanctions and deadlocked joint ventures. Her experience of disputes under sale contracts and offtake agreements is extensive, including issues concerning price reopener clauses, force majeure, late shipments, quality problems, late payments, letters of credit and the transportation and storage of dangerous goods. She has also represented clients in a number of trade credit and marine cargo insurance claims. In addition, Elizabeth advises frequently at the initial stages of disputes in order to achieve early resolution.
Elizabeth also has extensive transactional experience, and works closely with Reed Smith’s trade finance team on complex structured transactions, often involving long term offtake arrangements, repos, flash title transactions, or other agreements relating to the sale, storage and transportation of commodities. Elizabeth also has significant experience in documenting commercial arrangements relating to mergers and acquisitions and business restructurings in the commodities and energy sectors. She has also drafted numerous general terms and conditions for the sale of commodities and is experienced in dealing with industry standard form documents.
