Ralph practises across all areas of commercial law. Recent work has included acting for the successful claimants in a US$300m international arbitration; obtaining strike out of a £39m Commercial Court fraud claim on behalf of Ernst & Young; obtaining (as sole counsel) an asset disclosure order in the Commercial Court; a US$10m shipping arbitration concerning shipment of dangerous goods; appearing in the Court of Appeal in a case concerning the Insolvency Act; acting for a major auditor investigated by the Financial Reporting Council; a political risk insurance claim arising out of the Syrian Civil War and a variety of wet and dry shipping matters.
Ralph acts both led and unled and has been instructed in matters up to and including the Court of Appeal. He has also spent time on secondment to the shipping department of a major City firm of solicitors.
Ralph joined Chambers in September 2017 upon successful completion of his pupillage under Charles Holroyd, Benjamin Parker, Michael Holmes and Richard Sarll. He has a particular interest in Admiralty Court work, having gained practical experience of navigation and seamanship over three years as a member of Cambridge University Royal Naval Unit.
Ralph has been published in the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly (on admiralty law) and has written for LexisPSL (on insurance arbitration).
2015-16: Bar Professional Training Course at City University, London (Outstanding, ranked sixth out of over three hundred candidates)
2014-15: Graduate Diploma in Law at City University, London (Distinction)
2011-2014: MA in Classics, Trinity College, Cambridge (double First)
While at Cambridge, Ralph was captain of the Trinity College team which won the 2014 series of the BBC television quiz programme University Challenge.
Ralph was formerly Assistant Editor of the Journal of International Comparative Law (published by Sweet & Maxwell)
“Make me a (narrow) channel of your peace: the narrow channel and crossing rules reconsidered”, [2019] LMCLQ 242: this article reconsiders the narrow channel and crossing rules of the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea in light of the recent decision in The Ever Smart [2018] EWCA Civ 2173; [2019] 1 All E.R. (Comm) 303; [2019] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 130 and proposes a governing principle for the interaction of these rules in order to solve a longstanding problem of admiralty law.
Practice Notes for LexisPSL on insurance arbitration.