Alice Sims
Call: 2004
Email: asims@keatingchambers.com
Tel: +44 (0)20 7544 2600
Alice is ranked for construction in the Chambers & Partner UK Guide and the Chambers & Partners Global Guide. She is incredibly bright and her popularity with clients and solicitors, whether she is working as part of a team or as sole counsel, stems from her hard working and hands-on approach. She balances an air of authority with a down-to-earth approach. Alice gets stuck into the technical detail of a case and is a fearless cross-examiner. Clients praise her for being accessible, practical and commercial.
Alice specialises in construction and engineering disputes along with professional negligence and insurance claims related to these sectors. She undertakes all aspects of alternative dispute resolution including representations to adjudicators and enforcement proceedings.
She has particular expertise in energy-related disputes (both onshore and offshore) and has acted for clients in a wide range of litigation concerning ships, renewables, nuclear, oil and gas projects. She also regularly acts in cases relating to the sale and supply of chemicals and the construction of chemical processing plants. She is familiar with all of the major standard forms and standard terms of appointment including NEC, JCT, RIBA, LOGIC, RICS, FIDIC, ICC, ICE and IChemE.
Alice has a wealth of experience in residential and commercial cladding cases, arising out of concerns following the Grenfell Tower Inquiry. She is currently instructed in numerous multi- million-pound cladding disputes for parties at all levels of the contractual chain including insurers. She is familiar with all of the technical issues concerning fire safety arising out of the Building Regulations, ADB and the Building Safety Act.
She also has extensive experience in domestic and international arbitrations concerning construction and energy disputes as well as the sale and supply of goods (conducted under various different rules including ICC, LCIA, SIAC, UNCITRAL). She also accepts arbitral appointments and has successfully completed the CIArb Accelerated Route to Fellowship.
Alice is a CEDR trained and incredibly popular mediator. She has an outstanding success rate of settling cases which clients attribute to her calm but commercial focus.
Alice has held judicial appointments since 2013 and currently sits at as Recorder in the Crown Court and as a Deputy Judge in the Upper Administrative Appeal Tribunal (which hears appeals from certain first-tier tribunals and also applications for judicial review). She has sat for more than 500 days and has written hundreds of judgments so she brings years of judicial experience (both in terms of managing complex hearings and also writing decisions) to her work as a barrister, mediator and arbitrator.
- Junior counsel for the architect defending a case worth more than £40m in relation to a cladding dispute in a mixed-use commercial development in London.
- Junior counsel for the Employer pursuing the design and build contractor in a case high-profile, multi-million pound dispute about the cladding on a high-profile building in the South of England.
- Sole counsel for the insurers in a multi-million pounds cladding dispute about a mixed-use building in the South-West of England.
- Counsel for a specialist tunnelling contractor in relation to various contractual disputes with a number of employers on the HS2 project.
- Sole counsel for a specialist roofing contractor in a claim relating to the design and construction of a psychiatric hospital worth over £5m.
- Sole counsel for a concrete flooring designer in a multi-million pound dispute relating to a manufacturing facility.
- Sole counsel for a firm of engineers in relation to a multi-million pound claim arising out of the design of a heating system in a landmark building in
- Junior counsel instructed by AMEC in a multi-million pound professional negligence claim against the structural engineers responsible for the construction of one of the largest concrete car parks in the UK.
- Sole counsel for an international energy company relating to a dispute about an umbilical carousel.
- Sole counsel for the owner of a power station in a Part 8 claim concerning a contractual dispute with a supplier.
- Junior counsel for Alstom Power in a multi-million pound dispute concerning a chemical processing plant.
- Junior counsel for a leading manufacturer of petro-chemicals in connection with a multi-million pound dispute against a specialist designer of chemical processing plants.
- Advisory work for a main contractor in relation to a dispute arising under an NEC contract and concerning the construction of treatment works within a nuclear power plant.
- Advisory work for a main supplier in connection with the sale and supply of ethylene.
- Advisory work for a land owner in a dispute involving the Water Industry Act.
- Junior counsel for the employer in a multi-million pound ICC international arbitration concerning a high- profile development in downtown Moscow.
- Sole counsel for a sub-contractor in an international arbitration concerning a commercial dispute about oil and gas separation plants in Libya.
- Sole counsel for the main contractor of a hydropower project in Kenya in relation to a multi-million dollar arbitration against the employer involving the FIDIC form of
- Junior counsel for the main contractor in a multi-million pound ICC international arbitration concerning a large offshore wind farm.
- Advisory work for a major supplier of internet services to the NHS Ambulance service.
- Junior counsel in a dispute concerning the functioning of bespoke servers in a leading mobile network provider’s main UK call center.
- Sole counsel for a leading telecommunications supplier in a claim relating to the installation of a telecoms
- Sole counsel for a leading telecommunications supplier in claims relating to the laying of telephone cables and the installation of telegraph poles.
- Junior counsel for a main contractor in a multi-million pound TCC dispute about the construction of a soft yoke mooring platform in Russia.
- Acting for the Defendant in connection with an alleged commercial fraud concerning the purchase of an oil platform in Brazil.
- Adjudicator in a contractual dispute at a commercial development between an Employer and architect.
- Mediator in a dispute concerning the trespass of gas flues in a housing association property into the air space above a commercial premises, preventing its upward development.
- Mediator is a dispute concerning the alleged failure of bespoke glazing to a commercial development.
- Mediator in a multi-million-pound residential dispute concerning alleged architect’s negligence.
- Mediator in a dispute between a charity and a major utility company relating to waste water.
