Arbitrators

Claudia Renton

Claudia has a broad and diverse commercial practice spanning domestic and international commercial litigation and arbitration with particular expertise in media, art and entertainment law and civil fraud. She has been recognized as a leading junior (Tier 1) for Art and Cultural Property Law by the Legal 500 since 2017 where she is described as an “Art fraud and contractual breach expert…A phenomenal junior, unflappable and extremely hard-working” (2021).

Claudia is an experienced advocate. She has appeared unled before arbitral tribunals and in the High Court, County Courts and the Employment Tribunal; and as junior counsel in the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, High Court, numerous arbitrations (including under the LMAA Terms (2012), LCIA Arbitration Rules, American Arbitration Association Rules, ICC Rules and DIAC) and in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts.

Her recent cases include: Sotheby’s v Mark Weiss Ltd in which Claudia, led by Joe Smouha KC, was instructed on behalf of an art gallery and its owner in a case concerning the sale of an alleged Old Master (said to be by Frans Hals) under a private treaty agreement, which was then alleged to be counterfeit; ICICI Bank UK plc v Assam Oil Co & Ors in which she was instructed, as junior to David Joseph KC, to resist a summary judgment claim for $70 million under a term loan said to be due. Other recent instructions include: acting (led by Ricky Diwan KC) for a foreign state in relation to the attempted enforcement of a $48 million judgment debt raising issues under the State Immunity Act 1978; acting (led by Richard Millett KC) for the Receivers of the shares of Nevis companies said to be worth in excess of $200 million and the Directors of those companies in multi-jurisdictional litigation concerning the disputed ownership of those shares; acting (led by Paul Stanley KC) in an ad hoc arbitration concerning a dispute between limited liability partners in an investment management business.

Claudia is accustomed to working closely with foreign lawyers; and both as sole counsel and part of a larger team. She is uniquely familiar with the DIFC and she has advised the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Courts on their Arbitration and Court Rules.

Claudia is the author of Those Wild Wyndhams, a biography of the Wyndham sisters (HarperCollins, 2014 (UK and worldwide); Knopf 2018 (US)), which won the Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize 2014. She is also co-author of Heroes (Quercus 2007). In her previous career as an actress she appeared on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company and at the National Theatre, and on television in series for the BBC and ITV.