Based in London, Paul Lomas specialises in commercial litigation, financial services litigation, cases with a strong economic or regulatory aspect and EU law and competition law. He has acted in a number of major corporate governance crises, including litigation and internal investigations into corporate conduct.  He has appeared in cases at all levels of the English courts, the European Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance, the Florida Supreme Court and in arbitrations.

His work has included acting for :

  • the Bank of England on the EC litigation arising from BCCI collapse, up to the House of Lords and in the current High Court litigation;
  • mobile telecoms operators in the £3.4bn challenge to the tax treatment of the licence fees;
  • several leading investment banks in litigation, and in regulatory investigations, including the Goldman Sachs/Reichhold litigation and the Interbrew investigation;
  • GE in the first market investigation under the Enterprise Act;
  • Japan Tobacco Inc and RJ Reynolds in relation to the allegations concerning cigarette smuggling by tobacco manufacturers brought by the EC and 10 Member States and in relation to the challenge to EC Directives;
  • Sotheby’s in relation to the ‘Dispatches’ television allegations and the associated internal investigations and on the cartel allegations associated with vendor commissions (including the class action claims for damages) and on various other art matters;
  • various energy companies, including E.On and Powergen and upstream gas companies, in a number of cases in the competition, energy and commercial fields, including CFI and ECJ proceedings in relation to the European Coal and Steel Treaty, contracts for differences, gas contract, power station sales and electricity distribution litigation;
  • the Estate of Francis Bacon on the litigation brought against his former gallery;
  • Reed Elsevier on the issues associated with mis-selling in its Travel Business and related corporate responsibility and in other related litigation;
  • Lloyd’s on the insurance market collapse, including conducting the Central Fund litigation and its “Reconstruction and Renewal” programme and associated litigation against action groups of Names;
  • various corporate clients on corporate governance issues including controls against behaviour infringing the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act and related legislation;
  • a wide variety of cartel cases including internal corporate investigations into possible infringements and considering class action damages claims, undertaking various leniency proceedings including the first EC 100 per cent leniency claim; and
  • the litigation associated with the restructuring and privatisation of the UK milk market (including the group actions brought by groups of farmers) and the review on EC law grounds of the MMC’s review of the milk market.

Paul, who speaks English and French, was educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge and Insead. He has been a partner since 1990.

Contact details

paul.lomas@freshfields.com

  • London office
  • 65 Fleet Street
    London EC4Y 1HS
    United Kingdom
  • Telephone
  • +44 20 7832 7059
  • Fax
  • +44 20 7108 7059