Diarmuid Laffan

Diarmuid has a broad commercial practice encompassing general commercial disputes, insurance, professional liability, construction and sports law.

He is ranked by the Legal 500 as a leading junior in insurance, professional liability and sports law. Comments include:

• “He is an excellent advocate and thinks quickly on his feet. Excellent drafting skills, very thorough and always gets into the detail of the matter.”
• “Quick to pick up the key issues and facts, Diarmuid has strong cross-examination skills – firm and coherent oral submissions with an understated authority.”
• “Diarmuid has great insurance law knowledge and gives clear, practical, strategic advice – you want him in your corner.”
• “He is exceptionally diligent. He has an engaging and highly persuasive manner in court.”
• “Diarmuid is a hands-on operator who is not afraid to seize the narrative and craft effective strategy into which the client buys in from Day One.”
• “His approach is incredibly professional and very strategic, distilling matters for lay clients.”

Diarmuid advises on a broad range of contractual and company disputes. Recent commercial cases that Diarmuid has acted in include:

• Acting in a £140m commercial arbitration regarding the termination of a long-term licensing agreement between a sports governing body and its former partner.
• Advising a reinsurer on a multimillion dollar claim brought by its North American agent following the termination of the agent’s binding authority.
• Acting for a high net worth individual in seeking to recover funds paid out based on misrepresentations made in the context of a £45 million commercial transaction.

Diarmuid has a thriving insurance practice and has acted led and unled in a variety of insurance and reinsurance matters. These have involved coverage disputes, issues of non-disclosure and misrepresentation, aggregation and other questions of construction, and issues relating to the 1930 and 2010 Third Parties (Rights against Insurers) Acts and the Insurance Act 2015. Diarmuid’s recent work in this area includes:

• Acting for property and business interruption insurers in defending a £100m claim arising out of the destruction of a large industrial facility after the performance of hot works (including issues as to the operation of the policy’s hot works condition precedent and non-invalidation clause, and a claim under the term implied by s.13A of the Insurance Act 2015).
• Acting for an insurer in a series of ongoing group actions brought by policyholders based on policies of ‘at the premises’ business interruption insurance following the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Advising Mumbai-based reinsurers regarding allegations of fraud against a firm of London cover-holders with whom the reinsurers had concluded various binding authorities.

Diarmuid’s professional liability practice spans the full spectrum of professional liability disputes. He has particular experience of acting in claims involving solicitors and barristers, insurance intermediaries, surveyors and accountants. The following are recent examples of Diarmuid’s work in this area:

• Acting for a firm of valuers in defending allegations by an investment fund that it extended a £17.5m facility agreement as a result of the defendant’s over-valuation of a major shopping centre development (ICML & Ors v Colliers International Valuation UK LLP).
• Acting for a surveying company in responding to a £50m claim brought by a major insurer in respect of losses incurred on latent defect property insurance alleged to have been written on the basis of negligent surveys.
• Spire Property Development LLP v Withers LLP [2023] 4 W.L.R. 56; Diarmuid was part of the counsel team both at first instance and before the Court of Appeal which successfully defended Withers against a claim based on allegations relating to the discovery of high-voltage cables on a property purchased by the claimant. The Court of Appeal’s judgment is a leading authority on the scope of lawyers’ obligations when responding to ad hoc queries outside the scope of any contract of retainer.

A significant part of Diarmuid’s practice involves disputes regarding construction and engineering contracts. He has considerable experience of advising and acting for employers, contractors, and various construction professionals including architects, engineers, and quantity surveyors. Current or recent instructions in this area include:

• United Living (South) Limited v Hawkins Brown Limited & others; Diarmuid acted on behalf of the claimant design & build contractor in bringing a claim in respect of defective cladding against the property’s architect, specialist façade contractor and building control approved inspector.
• Advising a mechanical and electrical contractor on a multimillion pound claim relating to the extension of a London Underground line against its professional indemnity insurer.
• Acting as sole counsel on behalf of the respondent in a complex, multi-million pound adjudication arising out of a large scale energy infrastructure project.

Diarmuid has a thriving sports law practice in which he regularly acts both in commercial disputes arising in a sporting context and in regulatory / disciplinary matters, and on behalf of athletes, clubs, and national governing bodies. Recent highlights in this area include:

• Acting for the International Tennis Federation before the Court of Arbitration for Sport in establishing that the respondent top-100 tennis player committed a doping offence as a result of three whereabouts failings in a calendar year. The judgment of the CAS is a leading authority on the scope of athletes’ obligations under the WADA Code’s whereabouts framework and the degree to which those obligations can be devolved to agents (CAS 2022/A/9033 ITFL v Ymer).
• Acting for an international governing body in a challenge by a national association to a field of play decision taken by a referee in the context of an international match.
• Acting for the ITF Ethics Commission in bringing a Code of Ethics charge against the head of the Ukrainian Tennis Federation following a series of high-profile public arguments between the respondent and the country’s top tennis players (Zukin v ITF).

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