Michael Crane KC

Michael Crane KC has over twenty years’ experience as an international arbitrator, until recently combining appointments as arbitrator with practice as a leading silk at the Commercial Bar.

In addition to many ad hoc appointments, Michael has been appointed under most of the world’s leading institutional rules including those of the ICC, LCIA, CIArb, LMAA, UNCITRAL, ARIAS, AAA, SIAC and the Swedish Chamber of Commerce. His appointments to date divide roughly equally between those as sole or presiding arbitrator and party appointments.

Michael is currently ranked by Chambers & Partners as an international arbitrator with a Band 1 listing, and also by Legal 500. In practice at the Bar he achieved Chambers & Partners Band 1 listings in Commercial Dispute Resolution, Insurance, International Arbitration (Commercial) and Transport law and was ranked the “Star Individual” in Aviation.

He recently acted for the respondent in the UK Supreme Court in the leading case on apparent bias and arbitrators’ obligations of disclosure (Halliburton v Chubb [2020] 3 W.L.R. 1474 ) and for insurers in the Supreme Court in the FCA’s test case on business interruption coverage for the COVID-19 pandemic (Financial Conduct Authority v Arch Ins. (UK) & Ors. [2021] A.C. 649). Previous examples of his work include acting for the UK airport slots authority following the collapse of Monarch Airlines ( [2018] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 549 ) and for the Czech Republic in its successful defence of issue estoppel against enforcement of an arbitration award under the New York Convention (Diag Human SE v The Czech Republic [2014] 2 Lloyd’s Rep. 283).

Michael has particular expertise in disputes involving interpretation of complex commercial instruments and issues of jurisdiction and conflicts of law. He is experienced in and is comfortable in applying, foreign as well as English law and has also provided expert evidence on English law for courts in the USA, Italy, Denmark, Ireland and Australia.

Michael is currently Chairman of the UK Takeover Panel.