What I do
I am a partner with responsibility for company and commercial matters at the Basildon office of Palmers. My work is a mix of contentious and non-contentious company and commercial business. My role is now largely supervisory but I have direct involvement in non-contentious work relating primarily to business structuring and re-structuring. I also have a direct involvement in “commercial divorce work” (disputes between shareholders and partners) and construction and construction related disputes.
The company and commercial team I supervise consists of 2 solicitors dealing with commercial litigation matters, 2 solicitors dealing with non-contentious company and commercial work including business acquisitions and disposals.
Short history
I trained with the predecessor practice of Palmers and was one of the four founder partners in 1983. Since that time the practice has grown in many respects but in particular in commercial work. Litigation at that time was simply “litigation.” It embraced all private client and commercial client work. This gave me experience in dealing with a wide variety of civil disputes such as title and boundary disputes, personal injury, employment and general contract. The commercial client work has given me a broad experience, particularly in partnership and shareholder “divorces”, intellectual property, information technology and construction disputes.
Mediation experience
After several years of experience representing parties in mediation, I trained last year with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in mediation procedure and techniques and I was accredited by the Institute in November 2006. I have represented clients in a number of construction dispute mediations including disputes involving multimillion pound claims. I have also represented parties in professional negligence, information technology, nuisance and defamation disputes.
Recent work
In recent years I have been involved with a number of high value claims in the Technology and Construction Court and the Commercial Court including reported cases dealing with European procurement law and construction cases, some with values of several million pounds. Also within this period I have dealt with the settlement of a £3 million construction adjudication and the settlement of a “defamation” dispute between two household name medical insurance providers.
I have been a lead partner in various business sales, purchases and re-organisations and I am now frequently involved in advising a client in the property facilities management industry on contracts and contractual disputes with net worth values of tens of millions of pounds.
Within my office I continue to supervise contentious and non-contentious work of all values and I am happy to accept mediation appointments regardless of the value involved.
Contact details
E: Clive Tant
T: 01268 240 000
