Date of Call: 1982
Silk Date: 2008
Languages: French (good), Russian, Italian (working knowledge)
General Information
MA (Cantab); MCIArb.
Assistante associée de langue anglaise à l’Institut de Droit Comparé, Paris 1982-3
Called to Gibraltar Bar: 1994
Practice
Julia Dias practises in all areas of commercial law, including insurance and reinsurance, professional negligence, international trade, shipping and private international law. She took a career break from 1998-2000 and subsequently worked for three years as a Legal Consultant and in-house barrister with leading City solicitors, Eversheds, attached to the insurance group of their Litigation Department. Whilst at Eversheds, she carried out advisory and advocacy work on a range of matters (mainly but not exclusively in the insurance and reinsurance field), including film finance cases, aggregation issues in relation to pensions mis-selling and the WTC attacks, brokers’ duties and a wide variety of coverage disputes. She returned to private practice in April 2003, since when she has been retained in a number of long-running arbitrations in both the insurance/reinsurance and shipping fields.
Julia is an accredited mediator with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. She is also a member of COMBAR and the London Shipping Law Centre, and a supporting member of the London Maritime Arbitrators’ Association.
Selected cases
Canelhas v Wooldridge ,(CA) [2005] 1 AU ER (Comm) 43 (Construction of hold-up / robbery limit in jeweller's block policy)
Dumford v OAO Atlantrybflot, (CA) [2005] EWCA Civ 24 (Misdescription of guarantor; extent to which extrinsic evidence admissible or misnomer principle applicable)
XL v Zenith, [2004] EWHC 1182 (Comm) (Pre - action disclosure)
C Inc plc. v. L, [2001] 2 Lloyd’s Rep.459 (Established for the first time in English law that in certain circumstances a freezing order could be obtained against a third party against whom the claimant had no direct cause of action.)
Petrotrade Inc v. Smith [1999] 1 W.L.R.457 (Date at which domicile to be determined for the purposes of service under Art.6 of the Lugano Convention.)
Ignazio Messina & Co v. Polskie Linie Oceaniczne, [1995] 2 Lloyd’s Rep.566 (Claim for breach of ship sale contracts.)
Apioil Ltd v. Kuwait Petroleum Italia SpA, [1995] 2 Lloyd’s Rep.124 (Trial of preliminary issues in oil quality dispute concerning conclusive evidence clause. Clients ultimately successful after full trial.)
