Biography
Tom has over 20 years’ experience in complex and high value commercial litigation and arbitration, spanning many business sectors and often involving multiple jurisdictions.
He has a wide-ranging practice based on managing high value, commercial disputes in sectors such as infrastructure, financial services, automotive, consumer products and retail.
Tom acts on some of the most high-value and complex mandates being brought before the English High Court, including acting for Privinvest in the US$2bn claim brought against Credit Suisse and Privinvest by the Republic of Mozambique, also known as the “Tuna Bonds” litigation. The claim relates to supply agreements and supporting financial instruments and guarantees entered into by state-owned enterprises dedicated to the development of Mozambique’s offshore Exclusive Economic Zone and supporting international investment into its oil and gas reserves. The claim engages allegations of bribery of Mozambican government officials. Tom acted for Privinvest companies in their successful March 2021 appeal of the question of whether claims against them were in the scope of arbitration agreements.
In relation to advising consumer facing companies, Tom has advised a UK client on food safety issues, including Natasha’s law, and is representing an iconic UK luxury fashion and accessories retailer. He is also one of the lead partners at Signature advising a worldwide automotive manufacturer on diesel emissions-related litigation proceedings in the UK. Tom is an expert at predicting when problems are likely to come to the boil and using innovative and legal tech solutions to solve them when they do. He is a market leader in applying e-disclosure to complex commercial litigation, having trained a group of High Court judges on this issue. Recently, he advised a client on content to allow third party users to create and manage comprehensive, legally binding smart contracts, and associated liability exposure.
Additionally, Tom has also been advising a major international consumer products manufacturer on third party disclosure obligations in England and Wales and in connection with a 6 week €150 million High Court trial.
Tom also represents clients in relation to financial services litigation, including advising a UK client on a potential dispute with one of the largest banking and financial services institutions in the world and the related FCA and the FOS regulatory regimes, as well as representing a UK-based financial advisory investment firm on a potential contractual dispute and debt recovery steps as regards one of Africa’s leading agri-fintech companies. Tom is also acting for two UK companies on the entitlement to specific performance from the English Courts against two non-UK financial services bodies.
Tom’s work is also often international in scope. For example, he has been advising on requests under the UK Freedom of Information Act regime and in the making of related requests under legislation of an EU Member State and of an international organisation that aims to promote global financial stability. He is also advising a client on a potential bilateral investment treaty claim in an extractives industry context.
Tom works in our London offices, but spent time on secondment to our Gibraltar offices in 2021 and works closely with our team in Paris. At Signature, Tom has worked with legal counsel throughout the EU, Switzerland, the Middle East, in sub-Saharan Africa and in the US.
Tom is recognised as a ‘Recommended Lawyer’ in The Legal 500 UK 2023 for Commercial Litigation. He has also been recognised for Banking Litigation: Investment and Retail. The Guide notes he “has a breadth of experience” and previous guides have also commended his “breadth of litigation and contentious regulatory experience including in the banking and financial services sector” and praises his “experience in private equity, consumer products and retail sector disputes”.
He has also been ranked in the Chambers UK Guide for his commercial litigation expertise, and was described as “extraordinarily good” and an “utter pleasure to work with and enormously talented, with a sixth sense for where a case is going and very sound judgement”. The Guides have also noted that Tom is “amazingly dedicated with strong credentials in international litigation” and that he is both “practical and commercial”.
Prior to joining Signature Litigation, Tom was Head of the Commercial Disputes Group at Freshfields. He has represented clients in high-profile, strategic negotiations, successfully managed their most reputationally sensitive risk issues and litigation, and run complex disputes in the UK’s senior appellate courts and the CJEU. In 2015, he was invited by the Commercial Court to sit on the Court’s Users’ Committee. Since then, Tom has played an active role in discussions around procedural reforms and the potential impacts on the UK Courts of Brexit.
During his time at Signature, Tom has written articles and has been featured in the media, including the Financial Times and The New York Times, on pertinent judicial review and dispute resolution topics, such as post-M&A disputes, audit failings and high-profile commercial disputes.
Tom is also well-known for his longstanding commitment to pro bono work, having represented Save the Children, someone seriously injured in the London 7/7 bombings and the family of one of the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing victims. In 2016, Tom brought a successful intervention in the UK Supreme Court on behalf of both the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants.
Experience
Commercial Litigation
- Advising a worldwide automotive manufacturer on emissions issues in the UK.
- Advising a California-based tech company on a potential dispute with a developer of one of the top ten most popular entertainment apps in the US.
- Advising Cargill in its long running dispute against one of the largest steel manufacturers in India. In 2019, Tom successfully obtained summary judgment in favour of Cargill and an award of default compensation at a rate of LIBOR plus 12%. This was one of the first cases to apply the UK Supreme Court’s seminal decision in Cavendish Square v Makdessi [2015] UKSC 67, which redefined English law as to when contractual obligations are an unenforceable penalty.
- Acting for a major bank in one of the most significant pieces of post-credit crunch litigation in the English Courts and then obtaining one of the largest non-party costs orders ever made. To enforce the resulting judgment debt, Tom successfully had equitable receivers appointed and defeated a subsequent attempt to set aside their appointment. Related proceedings include obtaining Norwich Pharmacal relief in England and Wales and Guernsey, litigation in the Turks and Caicos Islands, proceedings in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales determining the UK’s contempt of court jurisdiction against foreign defendants, successful enforcement action in the Norwegian Supreme Court (leading to the sale of a key asset in 2020), and a US trial in late 2019.
- Acting for Deutsche Bank in its dispute with Unitech, one of the first cases to consider the civil consequences of alleged LIBOR manipulation. This case had been to the Court of Appeal on a number of interlocutory points (including LIBOR) and at trial in 2019, the Court entered judgment (on the first day of the trial) against Unitech for approximately USD $315m.
- Advising Accenture in its multi-million pound dispute with Centrica (British Gas) over the design and implementation of the largest billing system ever installed for a major utility company.
- Acting for Hutchison 3G in a dispute with its network software supplier concerning delays in production and quality.
- Representing a multinational in its successful defence of English High Court group litigation proceedings brought by a group of landowners, claiming for environmental damage allegedly caused by the construction of an oil pipeline.
- Acting for a global feed business on litigation strategy issues in the context of a potential dispute with a leading private equity house.
EU Law and Judicial Review
- Advising a high profile body in the insurance sector in connection with public law issues engaged by the UK Government’s position on a contentious EU directive and in connection with potential UK Supreme Court proceedings and related contribution claims.
- Obtaining a reference from the English High Court and then bringing proceedings in the CJEU to challenge the legality of the EU’s revised Tobacco Products Directive.
- Bringing judicial review/constitutional challenge proceedings in the English High Court, Court of Appeal, the UK Supreme Court, the Australian High Court and the Irish Courts against bans on the branding of certain consumer products.
- Acting for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner and the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in the 2016 UK Supreme Court hearing of R (on the application of MM (Lebanon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department.
- Advising a global product manufacturer on complex challenges to UK and EU food law.
- Advising clients on requests under the UK Freedom of Information Act regime and in the making of related requests under legislation of an EU Member State and of an international organisation that aims to promote global financial stability.
International Arbitration, Civil Fraud and Risk Management
- Representing Privinvest in connection with a US$2bn claim brought against Credit Suisse by the Republic of Mozambique. The claim relates to supply agreements and supporting financial instruments and guarantees entered into by state-owned enterprises dedicated to the development of Mozambique’s offshore Exclusive Economic Zone and supporting international investment into its oil and gas reserves. The claim engages allegations of bribery of Mozambican government officials. Tom acted for Privinvest companies in their successful March 2021 appeal of the question of whether claims against them were in the scope of arbitration agreements.
- Advising a major multinational in relation to complex and high value ICC arbitration proceedings involving a six-week hearing in 2019.
- Advising a UK plc in the energy sector in connection with complex LCIA arbitration proceedings.
- Leading a team advising in complex cross border litigation involving allegations of fraud, conspiracy and breach of directors’ duties. The litigation involved freezing and asset disclosure injunctions being granted in favour of an entity connected to an ultra high net worth individual and a related jurisdictional dispute being appealed to the UK Supreme Court and a successful preliminary reference to the CJEU.
- Advising manufacturers and retailers of food, feed and consumer products in connection with numerous safety issues, including global product recalls and an investigation into the cause of a multi-million dollar food contamination crisis.
- Advising a major international consumer products manufacturer on third party disclosure obligations in England and Wales and in connection with a six week €150m High Court trial.
- Advising clients on appearances before UK Parliamentary Select Committees.
- Advising a client on a potential bilateral investment treaty claim in an extractives industry context.
- Advising a UK-based client on content to allow third party users to create and manage comprehensive, legally binding smart contracts, and associated liability exposure.
Publications
Delay Plan To Phase Out EU Regulation, Law Group Urges – Law360 – 18 January 2023
Bitar, Beirut and bank transfers – Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence – 16 September 2022
Letter: Curtailing judges risks an overly powerful executive – Financial Times – 9 December 2021
Judicial review reform: A risk to the courts’ post-Brexit standing – Litigation Futures – 30 March 2021
Swiss arbitration stalls Mozambique’s Tuna Bonds bribery claim against Privinvest – Global Investigations Review – 11 March 2021
Shipbuilder wins stay of Mozambique bribery suit – Global Arbitration Review – 11 March 2021
Privinvest Forces $2B Mozambique Fraud Suit To Arbitration – Law360 – 11 March 2021
Wex Deal Leaves Questions On UK Approach To M&A Suits – Law360 – 21 December 2020
Auditor regulation and litigation – down to the wire(card)? – Finance Digest – 6 August 2020
Mortgage arrears-handling failures cost Lloyds dearly – Compliance Monitor – July 2020
Warranty Claims Litigation May Surge Due To COVID-19, Brexit – Law360 – 31 July 2020
The UK Government Has Refused to Compensate Dealers Affected by Its Ivory-Trading Ban. Here’s Why That Has Big Implications – Artnet – 24 July 2020
Auditor regulation and litigation – down to the wire(card)? – Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence – 16 July 2020
Deloitte faces record £15m fine for Autonomy audit failings – London Loves Business – 10 July 2020
The Angelic Grace of judicial pragmatism – Litigation Futures – 15 June 2020
Witness statements – evolving or endangered? – The Law Society Gazette – 15 June 2020
FCA fines Lloyds $80M for mistreating mortgage customers – Compliance Week – 12 June 1010
Priti Patel insists ‘it’s not MY plan’ after Ryanair boss vows to ‘block travel quarantine’ by the end of THIS WEEK as airlines and businesses join legal fight – Daily Mail – 8 June 2020
Comments in relation to UK airlines calling for a judicial review of Government COVID-19 quarantine rules for international arrivals to the UK – The New York Times – 8 June 2020
Comments in relation to UK airlines calling for a judicial review of Government COVID-19 quarantine rules for international arrivals to the UK – Reuters – 8 June 2020
APPOINTMENT OF THE WEEK – TOM SNELLING AT SIGNATURE LITIGATION – Edward Fennell’s Legal Diary – 4 June 2020
Signature Litigation snaps up Snelling – New Law Journal – 31 May 2020
Signature signs up Snelling – CDR – 28 May 2020
Areas of Expertise
Latest news

@SignatureLitLLP
We are pleased to announce that Ela Barda has been promoted to Counsel - many congratulations, Ela! Read more here: bit.ly/3XMqd7A #Litigation #CommercialLitigation pic.twitter.com/JxZLKh1qN2
Sylvie Gallage-Alwis and Gaëtan de Robillard assess the impact of the Conseil national de la consommation’s new practical guide in Le Monde du Droit
28 September 2023
Sylvie Gallage-Alwis and Gaëtan de Robillard assess the impact of the Conseil national de la consommation’s new practical guide in Le Monde du Droit
28 September 2023