Jody is an international trade disputes lawyer in Reed Smith’s Shipping Group, acting for global and regional clients in the shipping, trade, construction, offshore and insurance sectors. Jody was a founding member of Reed Smith’s Singapore office when it opened in 2012 and worked there between 2012 and 2017, following which he relocated to Reed Smith’s London office.
On the shipping side, Jody acts for shipowners, charterers, ship managers, and insurers and P&I clubs on a broad range of maritime disputes involving, among others, newbuildings, charterparties and contracts of affreightment, bills of lading, cargo, memorandum of agreements, offshore disputes, ship management, ship arrests and casualties. Jody also undertakes some transactional work, including acting for sellers, buyers and mortgagees in ship sales and purchases.
On the trading side, Jody acts for commodities clients in disputes under international sale contracts, involving soft and hard commodities and in various financing arrangements, such as letters of credit. On the advisory side, Jody regularly reviews standard contract terms for the sale of goods.
Jody has also acted in a number of high-value construction matters, including a significant dispute concerning a newbuild rock-dumping fall pipe vessel due to be constructed in the PRC. The matter concerned issues of design, delay and refund guarantees.
Jody has regular independent management of institutional and ad hoc international commercial arbitrations (shipping- and trade-related) seated in London, Singapore and Hong Kong. Day to day, Jody regularly handles LMAA, SIAC, HKIAC and SCMA arbitrations. In June 2017, Jody was awarded a Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; and in September 2017, Jody was appointed as a Fellow by the Institute (FCIArb).
Jody regularly presents at both internal and external shipping and commodities seminars, including GAFTA’s “Shipping The Goods” course (2014 and 2016), GAFTA’s Trade & Trends Forum (2016) and the U.S. Soybean Export Council’s 9th Asia Grain Transportation Conference. Jody also regularly publishes shipping-, trade- and arbitration-related articles, including: “OW Bunker in Singapore – Where are we?” (August 2016); “Electronic Bills of Lading: Another step forward!” (January 2016); and “Perceptions of bias, impartiality and justifiable doubts” (August 2017).
Away from work, Jody has three little girls who occupy his time. Jody also enjoys rugby (last played at the Singapore Cricket Club and now mainly watched!), surfing, skiing (having once run a chalet in Val d’Isère) and scuba diving. He cycles regularly and competes in the odd triathlon. Jody loves France (not least the vino!), having spent a year working in a law firm in Aix-en-Provence and speaks good, if slightly rusty, French.
