Piers Plumptre

Piers Plumptre is an English qualified partner working in the London office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Piers is a member of the Dispute Resolution and International Arbitration Groups.

Piers’s practice includes international arbitration and enforcement, complex commercial litigation, financial services disputes, and international fraud and white collar crime. He has extensive experience of international litigation and arbitration matters, spanning multiple jurisdictions, and in a wide variety of sectors.

Piers’s recent commercial arbitration experience includes acting for a major international contractor in a US$ 4 billion dollar ICC arbitration arising out of a Middle Eastern infrastructure project, acting for an energy company in an ICC arbitration against an African State concerning a power project, and acting for a global mining company in a US$ 2 billion LCIA arbitration (and related English High Court proceedings) concerning a long-term supply contract.

Piers has significant investment treaty arbitration experience, including ongoing representation of the former shareholders in a major oil company in a long-running US$ 6 billion UNCITRAL arbitration against the Russian Federation. Piers has also represented an Egyptian telecoms company in an ICSID arbitration against Canada, and continues to act for a major personal care products company in an investment treaty arbitration against Venezuela.

Piers also regularly acts for clients seeking to enforce arbitral awards and judgments, both in the UK and elsewhere. Examples include recently seeking and obtaining a freezing injunction and related relief from the English High Court, in connection with a US$ 550 million ICC arbitration award arising out of a mining dispute. He has also appeared (as junior to Charlie Falconer) in the recent proceedings bought by Tethyan Copper Company in the BVI (where he is admitted to practice), seeking to enforce an ICSID award worth more than US$ 6 billion against the Government of Pakistan.

Piers’s experience of offshore litigation also includes acting for UBS in BVI proceedings brought by the liquidator of the largest Madoff feeder funds to recover monies paid out during the lives of the funds; including representing UBS before the BVI High Court, the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal and the Privy Council (sitting as the ultimate BVI appellate court).

Piers is recognised by The Legal 500 UK 2024 for International Arbitration, Public International Law and Oil & Gas. He is also recognised by the 2023 edition of Best Lawyers in the United Kingdom as “One to Watch” for International Arbitration. He is also ranked for International Arbitration in the Lawdragon 500 Leading Global Litigators guide 2024. 

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Piers completed his pupillage at a leading commercial/chancery barristers’ chambers, having been called to the Bar of England and Wales in November 2011. Reflective of the international nature of his practice, he is also admitted to the bar of the British Virgin Islands. In 2016/2017, he spent 18 months working in Gibson Dunn’s New York Office, focusing primarily on international arbitration.

Capabilities

• International Arbitration
• Judgment and Arbitral Award Enforcement
• Litigation
• Transnational Litigation
• Trials

Credentials

Education:

• BPP Law School - 2011 Bar Professional Training Crs.
• Oxford Institute of Legal Practice - 2010 Graduate Diploma in Law
• University of Oxford - 2009 Bachelor of Arts

Admissions:

• Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (BVI)
• England & Wales - Barrister