News & Events
News & Events
Alex Haines and Carin Hunt are to proceed to a substantive hearing of the merits of their client’s indirect sex discrimination claim against her employer, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) of the World Bank Group. This will be the first claim of its kind to be heard by the World Bank Administrative Tribunal (“the WBAT”) – an International Administrative Tribunal similar in nature to the United Nations Appeals Tribunal and the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal – which sits in Washington DC. The WBAT has yet to consider whether indirect discrimination is prohibited pursuant to the internal policies of this large international financial institution whose employees must seek recourse within the IBRD’s internal justice system as opposed…
News 11 Jul, 2023
Outer Temple Chambers’ Sanctions Team is instructed in the most high-profile and cutting-edge cases in the UK’s new sanctions framework. The Sanctions Team has unrivalled expertise in challenges to UK sanctions designations and High Court applications relating to, and arising from, the UK’s sanctions framework. This experience – twinned with instructions to act for and advise the UK Government and with ongoing high-profile sanctions advisory services – has put the team at the forefront of sanctions law and practice in the UK and its overseas territories. Comprised of seven specialist barristers; John McKendrick KC, Oliver Powell, Alex Haines, Sophie O’Sullivan, Josh Hitchens, Jeremy Scott-Joynt and Henry Reid, supported by members of the wider Business Crime and Regulation and Commercial teams…
News 20 Jun, 2023
Alex Haines, a member of OTC’s Business Crime and Regulation team, has been instructed to represent a Respondent accused by INT of fraud following a successful bid on a project in East Africa. Alex is one of the leading practitioners in the UK and EU in the sanctions and debarment frameworks of Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs): he sits as a Sanctions Officer at the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB); he has represented companies and individuals before both the World Bank’s Sanctions Board in Washington DC and the Asian Development Bank’s Integrity Oversight Committee in Manila; he has been instructed in cases of corruption brought by the investigative and integrity offices of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and…
News 19 Jun, 2023
Alex Haines and Joshua Hitchens have been instructed for the Applicant against the Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Export Credit before the Islamic Development Bank Group Administrative Tribunal. The newly established Islamic Development Bank Group Administrative Tribunal (IsDBGAT or Tribunal) is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and hears cases brought by international civil servants who work at the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDBG). The IsDBG is comprised of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), Islamic Research & Training Institute (IRTI), Islamic Corporation for Development of the Private Sector (ICD), Islamic Corporation for Insurance of Investment and Export Credit (ICIEC), and International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC). The IsDBG is a regional International Financial Institution (IFI) whose mission includes the promotion of social and economic development…
News 18 Apr, 2023
Jeddah: Alex Haines and Victoria Brown have been successful in the first ever substantive in-person hearing before the newly established Islamic Development Bank Group Administrative Tribunal. The Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDBG) – an International Financial Institution founded in 1973 and based in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – established an International Administrative Tribunal (similar in nature to the Administrative Tribunals of the World Bank and IMF) that started operating in 2022 to hear disputes between the IsDBG and its staff members. Alex and Victoria acted for the successful Applicant in the first ever substantive hearing before the Tribunal, held in person in December 2022. Their win follows a remote interim hearing in another matter earlier in 2022, in which Alex and Courtney…
News 18 Jan, 2023
Following their win before the OAS Administrative Tribunal in the case of Griner v Secretary General of the OAS Judgment 169 (31st August 2022), Alex Haines and Victoria Brown have secured another victory in the case of LaGuerre v Secretary General of the OAS, Resolution 413 (21st October 2022). After Mr LaGuerre’s case had been filed in March 2022, the OAS filed two motions: “Motion to dismiss the case in its entirety for being frivolous and failing to make a claim upon which relief can be granted”. “Motion in support of imposition of the filing fee therefore denying and dismissing the Complainants request for a waiver of said filing fee with prejudice”. The issue of wider interest in this case…
News 2 Dec, 2022
Alex Haines (Outer Temple Chambers) and Camila Zapata Besso (Doughty Street Chambers) successfully represented an individual in an international disciplinary case of alleged misconduct brought by the Ethics Office of the Inter-American Development Bank (‘IADB’), a regional Multilateral Development Bank and International Financial Institution headquartered in Washington DC. The mandate of the IADB’s Office of Institutional Integrity is limited to investigating external parties only. For former Bank staff members (such as the client in this case), however, the Ethics Office has jurisdiction to investigate and bring cases of alleged misconduct. Two and a half years after he was originally interviewed by the IADB’s Office of Institutional Integrity and the Ethics Office, and following detailed written representations made by Alex and…
News 30 Nov, 2022
Join Outer Temple Chambers and guests on the 6th December 2022 for a Sanctions & Export Controls breakfast seminar hosted at The Reform Club. You are invited to join our Business Crime and Regulatory Team and our esteemed guests for a discussion on navigating sanctions regimes, designations and export controls in civil, administrative and criminal proceedings. The event will be co-chaired by Outer Temple’s John McKendrick KC and Fiona Horlick KC. Speakers include Oliver Powell, Alex Haines, Sophie O’Sullivan, Jeremy Scott-Joynt, Joshua Hitchens, and Henry Reid. Guest speakers include; Tristan Grimmer, Partner at Baker Mckenzie; Elizabeth Robertson, Partner at Skadden; and Tom Cornell, Associate at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP. The conference will take place at The Reform Club in London…
Events 14 Nov, 2022
James Counsell KC and Alex Haines, who were instructed by Janes Solicitors, represented the contemnor in a landmark appeal to the CA against the findings of contempt and the sanction imposed. The Court of Appeal gave helpful guidance on when permission to appeal is needed and on the Court’s power retrospectively to dispense with service of the injunction under the new CPR Part 81 regime. In Hussain v Business Mortgage Finance 4 PLC & Ors [2022] EWCA Civ 1264, delivered on 4th October 2022, the Court of Appeal (Arnold, Stuart-Smith and Nugee LJJ) gave judgment upholding the committal order against the Appellant by Mr Justice Miles and the ensuing 24-month sentence of imprisonment, the maximum term. The Judgment is available…
News 7 Oct, 2022
The OAS Administrative Tribunal has handed down judgment in Griner v Secretary General of the OAS, judgment no. 169. Alex Haines and Victoria Brown appeared for the successful Complainant during a three-day hearing at the OAS’s headquarters in Washington DC in April 2022 before all six judges of the Tribunal sitting en banc for the first time. In its historic decision, the Tribunal changed the applicable standard of proof for cases of serious misconduct. The landmark win entirely vindicates Mr Griner, whom the Tribunal ordered be re-instated with back-pay, or be awarded the maximum available under the Tribunal’s Statute; the latter for only the second time in the Tribunal’s history, and for the first time since the 1980s. The Trump…
News 4 Oct, 2022
The Legal 500 UK 2023 Rankings have been announced and Outer Temple Chambers is delighted with the results. With over 60 barristers now holding rankings across 27 practice areas and some glowing feedback, we are honoured to have been described as a “go-to set” once again. We are particularly delighted that the hard work of our juniors has been noticed and would like to congratulate Bianca Venkata and Victoria Brown for their elevation from Rising Stars to a Tiered ranking. As they now start working their way up the ranks we welcome four new juniors into the Rising Stars category; Alex Cisneros, Carin Hunt, Imogen Egan and Olinga Tahzib. Congratulations also to Alex Haines, Clare Baker, David Haines, Joshua Hitchens…
News 29 Sep, 2022
Earlier this Summer, Alex Haines and Courtney Step-Marsden were instructed in an action against the Islamic Corporation for Development of the Private Sector (ICD) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Ahead of filing full Applications on the merits, Alex Haines and Courtney Step-Marsden lodged – through Provisional Applications – requests to suspend management’s decision to terminate the employment of five Staff Members. Following the IsDBG Administrative Tribunal’s first ever hearing on Saturday 13 August 2022, the Tribunal agreed that the discretionary power of the management in international organisations is neither an absolute nor an arbitrary power and it remained subject to judicial review by the Tribunal. It consequently declared its jurisdiction to examine the case and the President of the Tribunal issued the…
News 31 Aug, 2022
