Richard Neylon

Richard Neylon is a Partner at the international law firm Holman Fenwick Willan LLP (HFW). He handles major incidents and disputes for marine, liability, war, and special risks underwriters and their assureds. Richard is a regular speaker at IUMI, an IUMI Professional Partner (IPP), and a member of the IUMI Ocean Hull Committee.

Richard is a recognised specialist in handling major marine casualties and acts for a range of shipowners, charterers, and insurers in wet and dry shipping disputes. He has particular experience of collisions, fires/explosions, salvage, piracy, capture/seizure, groundings, unsafe port claims, and war risks – often involving complex multi-jurisdictional litigation and arbitration.

Richard has been at the forefront of dealing with marine war risks in all conflict areas for well over a decade. He is known globally for his work in relation to Somali piracy and West African piracy and, more recently, for assisting leading war risks insurers in relation to vessels stranded in Ukrainian ports as a result of the Russia/Ukraine war. He dealt with the initial emergency crew evacuations, through to the trade/contractual disputes, deemed Constructive Total Losses (CTL), and the post-CTL war zone vessel sales. He then moved on to handling incidents in the Red Sea arising out of the Houthi attacks.

Richard also heads HFW’s global Complex Environments team, specialising in major incidents and disputes for corporations and their insurers in hostile and complex environments globally. This includes matters arising from major loss, war, terrorism, political risks, kidnappings, hijackings, extortions, detention of people and property, and other challenging events.