Sophie Lamb KC is an internationally renowned arbitration lawyer who provides strategic leadership and powerful advocacy on a range of multidisciplinary, reputational risk-management, and bet-the-company matters.

A trusted advisor to boards of public companies, sovereign nations, and participants in the energy and technology sectors, Ms. Lamb KC is consistently recognized among industry’s global elite for her work in some of the most significant and topical cases of the moment. Her mandates have featured in The Lawyer’s top 20 cases of the year and she has featured on their list of the UK’s most influential and inspirational lawyers for her successes “in billion dollar, high profile, politically sensitive and often market-shaping arbitration cases and related court trials.”

Ms. Lamb KC is an accomplished advocate who draws on an exceptionally diverse international case load and more than 20 years of international tribunal and trial experience including in the UK Supreme Court. Her experience extends across the full range of significant corporate and commercial arrangements, international investment law, public law, and climate litigation. She has also has sat as arbitrator in many commercial cases including those under expedited rules. Leveraging strong expertise in class action litigation targeting multinational groups, Ms. Lamb KC is increasingly engaged on sensitive and strategic mandates which engage the ESG agenda, covering such issues as directors’ duties, reporting risks, climate change and public interest litigation, global supply chain integrity, human rights-related exposure, and OECD National Contact Point processes. She also counsels more generally on navigating the risks and opportunities arising from heightened focus on ESG, net zero ambitions, and corporate purpose.

Ms. Lamb KC is a member of the UK Policy Committee of the ICC, the world’s largest business and trade organization. She has also served as Global Co-Chair of the International Arbitration Practice and on the firm’s Strategic Client Committee.

Ms. Lamb's experience includes advising:

Commercial Arbitration

  • One of Asia’s largest and most diversified conglomerates following the lapse of a US$2 billion M&A deal during the global pandemic
  • A private equity house in a SIAC arbitration concerning a TMT investment in Southeast Asia
  • A global technology investor in an ICC arbitration concerning a multi-billion dollar food delivery venture
  • A leading mining company on a very high value shareholder rights and environmental dispute arising from projects in Latin America

Investment Treaty Arbitration

  • Mason Capital in its US$200 million investment treaty claim against the Republic of Korea following the exposure of corruption involving South Korean political and business leaders
  • Investors in a Turkish gold mine whose multi-billion dollar interests were expropriated
  • A sovereign party in an investor-state dispute concerning a bank rescue program
  • An international oil and gas company and Murphy Oil in their successful NAFTA arbitration against Canada under the ICSID, Additional Facility Rules over illegal performance requirements*
  • Mobile TeleSystems in its US$2.5 billion investor-state arbitration against Uzbekistan brought under the Additional Facility of the ICSID, including successfully defending an Article 45(6) application*

Litigation

  • Royal Dutch Shell and Shell Petroleum Development Company in landmark ESG class action work in the UK Supreme Court
  • Energy majors in climate change litigation including in judicial review proceedings
  • Ust-Kamenogorsk Hydropower Plant, a subsidiary of Samruk Energy, as advocates to the appellant in the UK Supreme Court on a landmark arbitration appeal to determine whether the English Court has jurisdiction to grant an anti-suit injunction in circumstances where no arbitration is intended or in prospect*

Energy

  • Corporate and commercial: Her experience extends across the full range of significant corporate and commercial arrangements including long term supply relationships, costs recovery schemes, tax stabilization clauses, gas pipeline and consortium issues, hardship/fairness clauses and price re-openers, M&A transactions including earn-out provisions, joint venture and shareholder agreements, pre-emption rights / ROFRs, warranty/indemnity claims, non-compete clauses, technology licensing, and IP rights
  • Investment disputes: counselled investors and sovereigns in numerous investment disputes involving investment agreements, production sharing or concession agreements, double taxation treaties and domestic anti-avoidance laws, stabilization clauses, national investment laws and mining codes, bilateral investment treaties and multilateral treaties including the NAFTA and the Energy Charter Treaty
  • A national oil company in a range of complex lending, shareholder, and supply disputes valued in the multiple billions of dollars

*Matter handled prior to joining Latham

Bar Qualification

  • England and Wales (Solicitor)
  • England and Wales (Solicitor-Advocate)

Education

  • Bar Exam/Admission, Inns of Court School of Law, London, 1998
  • LL.M., London School of Economics, 1997
  • LL.B., Université de Bourgogne, 1996
  • LL.B., University of Manchester, 1996