International

In addition to work in the United Kingdom, the four practice teams at Landmark also regularly undertake advisory and (subject to obtaining temporary rights of audience where required) advocacy work in a range of overseas jurisdictions. These include:

Our barristers are able to attend meetings overseas as well as taking advantage of our state of the art video-conferencing facilities when practicalities or budget make this more appropriate. We can also provide overseas clients visiting Landmark with conference room and IT facilities to use before and/or after meetings with counsel.

Some of our barristers have been permanently called to the Bar in Hong Kong and others have undertaken secondments with law firms in Hong Kong, reaffirming our long-standing links with this jurisdiction. We also have four former Judicial Assistants to the Law Lords, who have considerable experience of working with the senior judiciary on Privy Council appeals from various Commonwealth jurisdictions.

Our overseas work includes acting for both private litigants and government bodies, and spans all four of our practice areas: environmental, planning, property and public law. Judicial review in particular is an increasingly important commercial strategy in Hong Kong and the Commonwealth jurisdictions, and our experience in this field is a crucial element of our international practice.

Recent examples of our international work include:

In Europe:

  • Regular appearances before the European Court of First Instance, European Court of Justice and European Court of Human Rights for private parties and the UK Government.
  • Appearing before the UNECE Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee at the United Nations in Geneva.
  • Advising in public law cases in Gibraltar.

In Hong Kong:

  • Advising on planning appeals to the Town Planning Appeal Board.
  • Acting and advising in various judicial review proceedings before the Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal and Court of Final Appeal, including most recently challenges to:
    • amendments to the Quarry Bay Outline Zoning Plan imposing significant height restrictions on buildings;
    • decisions by the Director of Lands to grant short-term waivers on agricultural restrictions on land use to enable large scale asphalt production; and
    • the cancellation of the holding over of payment of Government rent.
  • Advising on a major land reclamation scheme within Victoria Harbour.
  • Advising on amendments to the Land Registration legislation.
  • Advising on the priority of mortgages and interpretation of section 45 of the Conveyancing and Property Ordinance.
  • Advising on and appearing in the Hong Kong Lands Tribunal regarding the assessment of Government rent.
  • Advising on rating and valuation issues.

Elsewhere in Asia:

  • Advising on the assessment of compensation for the compulsory purchase of land in Malaysia.
  • Advising on breach of fiduciary duty in Malaysia.
  • Advising the Cambodian Government’s Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction on proposals for a new system of land titling in Cambodia.
  • Advising a US company on emissions trading in the Philippines under Kyoto.

In the Caribbean:

  • Advising the British Virgin Islands Government on the constitutional mechanism for establishing a new commercial court.
  • Acting in Privy Council Appeals cases, including from Belize to the Privy Council on rectification and land registration and from Jamaica in respect of the assessment of damages.
  • Advising on retail property transactions in Trinidad.