Ben Carroll

Ben specialises in international commercial arbitration, with a particular focus on the energy and mining sectors, the EEMEA region and India. He has extensive experience in a wide range of commercial disputes, including joint ventures, mergers and acquisitions, long term supply agreements and construction projects.

Ben acts as counsel and arbitrator and has conducted ad hoc and institutional arbitrations under all the commonly used international rules, including London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He often handles High Court litigation where it is connected to arbitral proceedings, and has experience of arbitral award challenge proceedings and enforcement proceedings in a number of jurisdictions. 

Ben works in close collaboration with lawyers from the firm’s other market-leading practice areas, in particular Corporate and Energy & Infrastructure, in cross-office, multidisciplinary teams. In particular, Ben is often involved in helping clients mitigate disputes risk in the middle of ongoing deals.

Ben has twice been on secondment to BP’s Dispute Resolution team where he was responsible for handling a number of international arbitrations and gained considerable experience of a wide range of industry issues. Ben has also been on secondment to our Moscow office and served as Head of the Russia Dispute Resolution team for several years.

Work highlights

Ben has acted for clients in many major arbitrations. Recent examples include advising:

• BP on two multi-billion dollar UNCITRAL/ad hoc arbitrations with the Government of India concerning cost recovery and migrated gas under a PSC
• a mining-sector client in an LCIA arbitration concerning claims under a tax indemnity in an SPA involving complex questions of local tax law in the jurisdiction where the asset was located
• an energy-sector client in resisting challenge proceedings in the English courts concerning an arbitral award setting an important precedent for the client’s ongoing business
• an energy-sector client in an LCIA arbitration concerning the construction of an oil processing facility in Iraq, which was complicated by the client being in bankruptcy proceedings during the dispute 
• a mining-sector client on a commodity trading dispute with a Chinese counterparty in an UNCITRAL/HKIAC-administered arbitration
• an international bank in a post-M&A ICC arbitration concerning a multi-billion claim for breaches of warranty and indemnity

Ben is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and is a member of the ICC’s UK Arbitration & ADR Committee.

He is also a trustee of the Free Representation Unit.

In his pro bono work, Ben currently leads several teams working with APPEAL on potential miscarriages of justice in the UK. Ben’s proudest professional achievement is leading a team of Linklaters lawyers that submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of an appeal by Bobby Moore who successfully challenged the imposition of the death penalty in Texas on the grounds of his intellectual disabilities.

Ben studied jurisprudence at Trinity College, University of Oxford.