DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND SETTLEMENT

Senogles & Co delivers deep and broad international experience based on decades acting as expert witnesses, or alternatively, more recently, as consulting experts.  

By choice, we are a specialist and approachable boutique practice, and our clients come to us … by choice. 

We have extremely broad experience across business sectors and countries. If you are looking for a Big Firm ‘hired gun’’ to tell you what you want to hear, regardless of what they in fact believe, then please, keep looking…

We communicate with clarity.

International arbitration and litigation - financial expert witnesses

This is the main role we have fulfilled in recent decades. As a small firm, we have enjoyed the relative freedom to act for clients only rarely facing the conflicts of interests encountered by larger firms. 

We have acted in legal proceedings as either:

  1. Party-appointed expert

  2. Tribunal-appointed expert

Our deep experience includes extensive testimony (on more than 70 occasions) including the routine and some unusual arbitration venues and rules: ICJ, ICSID, ICC, OIC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, Stockholm Chamber, Cairo Regional Centre.  In addition, we have experience giving testimony and valuation oral opinion in front of tribunals at: TAS/CAS Tribunal d'Arbitrage du Sport [Lausanne], Iran-US Claims Tribunal [Den Haag] and the United Nations Compensation Commission [Geneva].  Litigation testimony includes the High Court in London and the Supreme Court in Gibraltar.

Geoffrey Senogles has been recognised in Lexology/Who's Who Legal since its start, and since 2017 as a Thought Leader.  He has regularly been invited to speak at legal conferences internationally and since 2009 has taught lawyers on LL.M. programmes in Switzerland and also in (private) in-house law firm workshops.

His own caseload has grown, and has evolved by diversifying away from testifying. Once again, this is a proactive choice.

Claim advisory consultants

SenCo is engaged by law firms, direct corporate clients and by third-party litigation funders to advise on claim evidence and methodologies.  On such mandates, we do not opine to the tribunal as independent expert witnesses but instead, we get close and we advise our clients on financial issues.  We bring our extensive experience to the table - plugged in, as part of the legal team. Our input is cost effective; we do not simply ‘double the amount of fees’ paid to accountants… We have seen over and over, that a limited scope intervention by a couple of serious experienced advisers focusing on identifying sufficient, relevant and reliable evidence is extremely valuable in making an evolving claim more robust, and so more compelling.     

Similarly,  on occasion, we have advised clients AGAINST instigating legal proceedings - thus saving them legal fees and precious management time on a fanciful case with poor prospects from a financial / evidentiary perspective. This has made us unpopular on occasion, but our clients value and rely on our word.   

Third-party funders routinely draw upon our experience, knowledge and our teamwork in order to strengthen the funded claimants' case on quantum.  Our advice is best sought early in a claim process - when we can have maximum impact.

We are available to discuss, at no cost and with no need to disclose parties' names, how we may help by advising you and your client. 
Please contact Geoffrey Senogles for an initial conversation.

Settlement - mediation consultants

Corporate claimant clients ask us directly to help them turn a signed, enforceable damages award (which is ‘nice to have’) into money landing in their company bank account (which is much much nicer).

Over the decades, while finding himself inside the heat of hundreds of active disputes, Geoff Senogles has sought to focus the tribunals/ judges/ parties on “the big picture”. Claimants typically want to see some cash received (and quickly), while most respondents want to be able to report a materially lower payout when compared to the claimed amount.

Experienced lawyers have suggested to Geoff that his demeanour, mindset and experience perfectly suit the role of a (non-lawyer) mediator.

Clients now gain from the SenCo team’s experience - to create conditions and an environment that encourage a commercial settlement. Our own financial focus complements the legal focus of our clients’ advocates. We are business owners; and so we know the everyday cashflow pressure points of business managers/owners.

We carry out the necessary research (involving specialist affiliates when necessary and cost effective) to bring to the meeting table a robust negotiating position. Face to face commercial discussions involving people with the authority and with motivation … brings results.