17 April 2020 - Article
Eleni Polycarpou
Partner | London
Eleni is a partner in the litigation and arbitration team and focuses on international arbitration.
Eleni has long standing expertise in dealing with international commercial disputes. This includes commercial arbitration as party appointed counsel under various institutional rules as well as ad hoc arbitration proceedings. Eleni is Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and takes arbitrator appointments.
She specializes in international commercial disputes including heavyweight commercial fraud work both in the English courts and in international arbitration. She acts for high net worth individuals and their companies often advising on shareholder and joint venture disputes, banking disputes, contract and tort disputes. Eleni is also well versed in mediation and has a track record of achieving a successful settlement of disputes via this method.
She has a specialist practice advising on art related disputes and leads the UK art litigation team. Eleni has 15 years’ experience of an extremely broad range of art related disputes played out in a number of different jurisdictions and has recently been chosen by the Court of Arbitration for Art to join their panel of arbitrators.
Eleni is from Cyprus and speaks fluent Greek, English and Italian. Eleni’s practice has a particular focus in acting for clients from those jurisdictions and from Russia and CIS, who often hold their interests through Cypriot companies.
Track record
Admissions
Publications
Memberships
Acting for NRC (a Cypriot company) in relation to fraud proceedings issued in London and in Cyprus against a former business associate (AAD) and companies controlled by him. In London Eleni and her team obtained a default judgment in the sum of £5 million. Their attempts to enforce this Judgment by obtaining a charging order over a property in West London legally owned by a BVI company, ended in a 3 day trial in the High Court in which the BVI Company vigorously defended the claim for the final charging order. Eleni and her team won at that trial and the Judge found that the Property is beneficially owned by AAD and that therefore NRC could proceed to enforce its default judgment.
Dexia Crediop SpA and Provincia di Brescia and Deutsche Bank AG London and Provincia di Brescia: Acting for an Italian local authority in two misselling of swaps claims against two banks and related Italian proceedings
LCIA Arbitration – acting for a company owned by a Russian Oligarch in fraud proceedings over the alleged alienation of a Russia based asset; proceedings brought in the LCIA and in parallel proceedings taking place in Russia, Cyprus and in the BVI and involving resisting freezing order applications in all the jurisdictions
England and Wales, 2005
British Virgin Islands, 2013
‘The Art Market Adjusts: Managing contractual obligations in uncertain times - US and UK’The%20Art%20Market%20Adjusts:%20Managing%20contractual%20obligations%20in%20uncertain%20times%20-%20US%20and%20UK,’%20Withers%20article%20-%20April%2017,%202020,%20co-author,’ Withers article - April 17, 2020, co-author__
‘Proposed EU regulations on the import of non EU-cultural goods’, Withers article – 19 February 2019, co-author
‘UK: Tough legislation to beintroduced for dealers in elephant ivory’, Withers article – 14 August 2018, co-author
Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb),
Association of Young Lawyers (AIJA),
British Italian Law Association (BILA),
British Russian Law Association (BRLA),
Russia and CIS Arbitration Network (RCAN),
Hellenic Law Association of London
Education
Languages
- English
- Greek
- Italian
Dates
Joined
2003
Partner
2017
