Steven Baker is a partner in the Litigation department and a member of the International Arbitration group. He has over 25 years of experience advising clients on complex, often multi-jurisdictional disputes in a wide range of industries, including asset management, technology, life sciences, financial services and defence sectors. He also has extensive experience advising upon and managing disputes for clients involving major technology or telecommunications projects and their financing, technology licensing and misappropriation of trade secrets.
Steven is ranked as a leading litigator for banking and financial services litigation in both Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners, who comment that “Steven is a tremendous litigator – he is very clever and efficient and handles multiple clients well” as well as being ”very thoughtful, very into the detail, but equally takes a very commercial stance”, “Very good at running complex commercial disputes, very bright and a pleasure to deal with” and “has a really good grasp of complex banking litigation.” He was named by Benchmark Litigation as its inaugural "UK Lawyer of the Year" in 2019 as well as a National Litigation Star (2019-2021). He was also designated a Client Services All-Star by the BTI Consulting Group, which selects lawyers who "deliver outstanding legal skills and superior client services" based on interviews with legal corporate counsel at the world's leading organizations.
Steven lectures on dispute resolution-related matters, including on the M. Sc. Major Projects course at Said Business School, University of Oxford. He is also the co-author of a leading publication on technology disputes entitled, “IT Contracts and Dispute Management: A Practitioner's Guide to the Project Lifecycle”, a second edition having been commissioned.
Education
- University of Bristol, LL.M.
- University of Bristol, LL.B. (Hons)
Admissions & Qualifications
- England & Wales
Awards & Recognition
Benchmark Litigation, UK Lawyer of the Year (2019)
Benchmark Litigation, National Star (2020, 2021)
BTI Consulting Group, Client Services All-Star (2018)
Chambers UK: Banking Litigation – London (2021)
Legal500 UK: Banking Litigation, Leading Lawyer (2021)
Matters
Representative matters include:
- Goldman Sachs International in complex multi-party, multi-jurisdictional proceedings arising out of the transfer of assets and liabilities of a collapsed bank in a EU member state to a 'bridge' bank, including the legal effect under the European Banking Recovery and Resolution Directive of various resolutions of the member state's central bank on the transferability of a substantial loan (Goldman Sachs International v Novo Banco SA [2018] UKSC 34);*
- A leading investment bank in the defence of a very substantial claim of alleged mis-selling and misrepresentation in respect of various CDOs/CDSs;*
- A sovereign wealth fund in connection with substantial claims for undisclosed commission arising from transition management arrangements and in connection with a subsequently DoJ investigation into a US based asset management company;*
- Skype Technologies SA in a very substantial, high profile £2.1bn "bet the company" dispute in the UK High Court and courts in California, Delaware and Estonia, arising out of the licensing and ownership of Skype's core peer-to-peer technology, including a successful application in the UK courts for an anti-suit injunction preventing the continuation of a substantial patent and copyright infringement action in California (Skype Technologies SA v Joltid Limited [2009] EWCH 2783(Ch));*
- An international IT services company in ongoing high value multi-jurisdictional dispute arising from the failure of hardware at a key data centre resulting in a lengthy outage and multiple claims from business customers for loss of business;*
- The board of an international telecoms company in respect of an expedited trial valued at up to £600m of various issues arising out of the merger of its UK mobile telecoms subsidiary with another UK mobile telecoms company;*
- A leading UK broadcaster on a major dispute relating to a contract for the supply of digital broadcasting management technology including advising on termination strategy, post termination recovery of assets and successful contract renegotiation;*
- A major aerospace and defence company in a substantial ICC arbitration concerning modifications to specialised aircraft under a services contract, including applications for emergency arbitrator relief;*
- A leaseholder of a communications satellite in a complex and high value ICC arbitration concerning various alleged design defects in the satellite;*
- A pharmaceutical company in a LCIA arbitration relating to the ownership of rights to biopharmaceutical products developed within a licence agreement framework.*
*at prior firm