Captain Joseph Riley

Partner

Joe is an Partner and Master Mariner at Winter & Co. He provides commercially focussed and practical legal advice to ship owners, charterers, P&I Clubs and property insurers on both ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ shipping matters, including unsafe port claims, speed and performance disputes, demurrage and off-hire disputes, as well as collisions, salvage, general average, and cargo claims.

During his career thus far, Joe has gained a wealth of experience in both the High Court and London Arbitration. His recent work highlights include:

• Representing commercial salvors in relation to the salvage of a stricken vessel on Lloyd’s Open Form terms.
• Representing Owners and their insurers in the High Court in relation to a collision between a VLCC and a container vessel in the Singapore Straits, and a collision an wreck removal in the port of Dammam.
• Representing bareboat charterers in the defence of two redelivery disputes in the sum of US$2.5 million brought in the High Court.
• Representing Owners in the defence of a refrigerated fruit cargo claim in the sum of €3.4 million brought in London Arbitration and advising on the Supreme Court decision in the Volcafe Ltd v Compania Sud Americana De Vapores SA [2018] UKSC 61.
• Representing Owners in an unsafe port claim in the sum of US$5.4 million in London Arbitration.
• Representing Charterers in a demurrage claim brought in London Arbitration in the sum of US$690,000.
• Representing Owners in a claim for recovery of general average contributions in the sum of US$550,000 and advising on the issues arising out of the Supreme Court decision in The CMA CGM Libra [2021] UKSC 51.

Joe has also advised client insurers on issues of insurance coverage, Iranian and Russian sanctions, as well as assisting in the review and drafting of charterparties for charterer clients.

Before coming ashore to study law, Joe spent 13 years at sea. During that time, Joe held command of the Australian Maritime Safety Authority emergency towage vessel which operated in the particularly sensitive sea area of the northern Great Barrier Reef and Torres Strait; the Trinity House vessel “Patricia”; as well as a number of offshore survey and geophysical drilling vessels. Joe also has experience onboard passenger ro-ro vessels and tankers.

Aftercoming ashore, Joe was awarded the Graduate Diploma in Law with Distinction from the Univerity of East Anglia and completed the Legal Practice Course, which he was awarded with Distinction, alongside his SRA training contract. He qualified in December 2020.

Joe wrote a mini dissertation on “How will the role of the ‘Master’ change and be defined in the context of autonomous and unmanned merchant ships to provide effective regulation going forward?” as part of the Graduate Diploma in Law, has co-presented a seminar on speed and performance claims, and has recently co-hosted seminars addressing the difficulties faced by Charterers in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and Sanctions.

In his spare time, Joe enjoys an active lifestyle involving trail running, canicross and triathlon and he has completed a number of long-distance events including the Fred Whitton challenge, the Mont Ventoux Three Way Cingles Cycle Challenge and Hever Castle’s ‘The Gauntlet’ middle distance triathlon.