Robert Webb KC -

was a door tenant at Brick Court Chambers from 2009-2012 before he then became General Counsel of Rolls-Royce, a post from which he retired in 2015 when he rejoined Brick Court Chambers.

Called to the Bar in 1971, he took silk in 1988 and was Head of Chambers at 5 Bell Yard for ten years from 1988-1998. His practice was insurance, reinsurance and commercial aviation. He   was much involved in ‘mass disasters’ and multi-forum issues, for example: the recovery for insurers of much of the value of the Kuwait Airways fleet, lost in Gulf War 1; the sinking of the ‘Herald of Free Enterprise’ at Zebrugge; the shooting down of Korean Airlines flight KAL007; the founding of Virgin Atlantic Airways and of Easyjet .

He was also Counsel to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for a decade, fighting specialist and product liability cases in Europe and in the UK. After leaving the Bar for commercial life, initially for ten years as General Counsel of British Airways and also as a director of the London Stock Exchange (from which he retired as Senior Independent Director in 2015), he left British Airways and went on to be a director or chairman of a number of public companies including: the BBC, where he was a board member, and chairman of BBC Worldwide (its commercial subsidiary); chairman of the technology company, Autonomy; senior independent director of Argent, a property company then developing King’s Cross, and some private companies, including Hakluyt. He was a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1993-1998, and has arbitrated and litigated commercial and aviation disputes both in the UK and around the world, including Tonga and Brunei, as well as many more familiar Commonwealth jurisdictions, such as Hong Kong, Australia and Canada.