As 2022 comes to an end I wanted to take a brief moment to reflect on a busy year (yes, I know, another one of these ‘year in reviews’) for the 12KBW International and Travel Group. First and foremost, thank you to anyone who reads this blog, shares our posts and engages with the content we produce. As a Group we’ve been incredibly lucky to have had James Beeton as the editor of this blog for so long. Under his stewardship this blog has become, undoubtedly, one of the go-to resources for travel practitioners. Thank you, James. I am both excited and daunted to have taken over from a true travel law guru and editor extraordinaire and, as a Group, we’re all looking forward to sharing our travel law thoughts and comments with you on this blog in 2023.
In court, it has been as busy as ever for the Group this year. We’ve tackled penalty interest under Spanish law, one of the hot issues of 2022, on numerous occasions. Philip Mead was instructed in Sedgwick v Mapfre, James Beeton in Woodward v Mapfre and Aliyah Akram and Max Archer battled it out as derby day opponents in Nicholls v Mapfre – in which the Defendant was recently granted permission to appeal to the High Court.
Alex Carington was successful in one of 12KBW’s numerous jurisdiction disputes in Charlton v Deffert and Philip also appeared in the important High Court case of Lambert v MIB which explored liability in foreign motorcycle races. John-Paul Swoboda was instructed in two leading cases: Haggerty-Garton explored the application of Scots law in a win for John-Paul which saw his clients several hundred thousand pounds better off than had English law applied, and Chouza v Martin & Others where Spanish pension law expertise was required in a claim where English law was otherwise applicable. Nina Ross was successful for the Defendant at trial in a complex fatal claim arising out of a Croatian traffic accident.
12KBW has also been busy with appellate work. William Audland KC and Max Archer were arguing about the boundaries of Consumer Credit Act liability in the Court of Appeal in Cooper v The Freedom Travel Group while Mike Rawlinson KC and Max Archer will be on their way to the Supreme Court in 2023 in the important case of Lipton v BA Cityflyer Ltd.
I was lucky enough to be selected for a Pegasus Scholarship to the US and James Beeton spent time in a leading Turin law firm perfecting his knowledge of Italian food and law.
The Group was strongly represented at PEOPIL conferences in Copenhagen and Malaga. Aliyah Akram was a speaker at the PEOPIL Clinical Negligence Conference and Max Archer delivered a paper at the PEOPIL Product Liability Conference. Finally, the Group was delighted to once again to sponsor the annual APIL Accidents Abroad Conference in London, which saw its largest ever turnout and was chaired by 12KBW’s Patrick Vincent KC, head of the Group.
Thank you to all of our readers, clients and to our wonderful clerking team for making 2022 another excellent year.
Happy Holidays!