SIFoCC Governance and Organisation

Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd (Chair) (Former Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales; President of the Qatar International Court)

Practice at Commercial Bar in London 1972-1996. Judge of Commercial Court 1996-2003. Lord Justice of Appeal 2003-2011, President of QBD 2011-2012. Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales 2013-2017. Since 2018, President of Qatar International Court, International Arbitrator, Chancellor of Aberystwyth University, Chairman of London Financial Markets Law Committee, First Vice-President of European Law Institute and active Member of the House of Lords.

Hon. James Allsop (Former Chief Justice of Australia’s Federal Court)

From 1981 to 2001 practised at the Bar in New South Wales. 1994 appointed Senior Counsel in New South Wales. In 1998 appointed to the Queen’s Counsel in Western Australia in 1998. May 2001 to June 2008, Judge of the Federal Court of Australia. June 2008 to February 2013 President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Australia as of 1 March 2013 until 6 April 2023. 
 
He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. He is President of the Francis Forbes Society for Australian Legal History. From 2019, his Honour is Chair of the ACICA Judicial Liaison Committee, a member on Asian Business Law Institute (ABU) Board of Governors representing the Australian Judiciary and a member of the Commonwealth Magistrates’ and Judges’ Association. In 2022 he was appointed as a Titulary Member of the Comité Maritime International 
 
The Hon James Allsop (AC) was made a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in 2023 for eminent service to the judiciary and to the law, to organisational and technological reform, to legal education, and to insolvency law. He was appointed as an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court in 2024.  

Sir William Blair (Former Judge in Charge of the Commercial Court of England & Wales)

Retired Commercial Court Judge in England & Wales (formerly Judge in Charge), Qatar International Court judge 2018 – present, Chair of Qatar Financial Centre Regulatory Tribunal 2006-11 and 2019 – present, practising as an international arbitrator from London chambers, Professor of Financial Law and Ethics Queen Mary University of London, Chair of the Bank of England’s Enforcement Decision Making Committee and various other appointments.

Chief Justice Andrew Cheung (Chief Justice of Hong Kong SAR) 

Chief Justice Cheung was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal on 11 January 2021. 
 
Chief Justice Cheung was in private practice in Hong Kong before joining the Judiciary as a District Judge in June 2001. He started sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge in December 2001 and was appointed a Judge of the Court of First Instance of the High Court in 2003. Chief Justice Cheung was made the Probate Judge in 2004 and the Judge in charge of the Constitutional and Administrative Law List in 2008. In 2011, he was appointed Chief Judge of the High Court and became President of the Court of Appeal of the High Court. In 2018, he was appointed a Permanent Judge of the Court of Final Appeal. 
 
Chief Justice Cheung is the chairman of the Judicial Officers Recommendation Commission which makes recommendations to the Chief Executive on judicial appointments. 
Chief Justice Cheung is an Honorary Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn. 
Chief Justice Cheung was awarded the Grand Bauhinia Medal in July 2021. 

Mr Justice Jonathan Harris (on behalf of Chief Justice Cheung of Hong Kong) 

Jonathan Harris became a judge of the High Court of Hong Kong in 2009 and shortly thereafter was appointed the Judge in charge of the Companies and Insolvency Court. In 2022 he became the President of Hong Kong’s Competition Tribunal. Judge Harris has lived in Hong Kong since 1983. He practiced as a solicitor prior to joining the Bar in 1993. 
 
Judge Harris was appointed Senior Counsel in 2006. Prior to joining the Judiciary his principal areas of practice involved insolvency, company regulation and securities. He is an active member of the International Insolvency Institute and INSOL and is a member of INSOL’s International College of Mediators. He has a particular interest in cross-border insolvency and restructuring issues. 

Chief Justice Emeritus Bart Katureebe (Former Chief Justice of Uganda) 

Bart Magunda Katureebe has had a distinguished career in law and politics in Uganda. he started his legal career as a State Attorney in the Attorney General’s Chambers before going into private legal practice. He subsequently served over a period of 13 years as a Minister in various portfolios including Foreign Affairs, Health, Industry, as well as five years as Attorney General/Minister of Justice. He was awarded the special rank of Senior Counsel. 

During his tenure as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, he participated in several mediations to resolve international disputes. As Attorney General, he represented Uganda in the dispute with DRC at the International Court of Justice at the Hague. 

In 2005, he was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court and in 2015, he was appointed Chief Justice, retiring in 2020. 

He currently runs a private Conflict Resolution Centre with focus on Mediation and Arbitration. 

Hon. Geoffrey Ma (Former Chief Justice of Hong Kong SAR) 

The Hon Geoffrey Ma is the former Chief Justice of Hong Kong, having retired from that position in January 2021.  Prior to joining the Hong Kong Judiciary, he was in private practice as a barrister at Temple Chambers. He practised mainly in commercial, company and public law, including arbitrations. He was Head of Chambers before his appointment as a Judge of the Court of First Instance of the High Court in 2001. He was elevated to the Court of Appeal in the following year and appointed Chief Judge of the High Court in 2003. He served as the Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal from 2010 to 2021. He is the Editor in Chief of Arbitration in Hong Kong: A Practical Guide (1st to 5th editions). He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, on their Panels of Arbitrators and Mediators, and is also on the Panel of Arbitrators of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre. He is also a door tenant of Brick Court Chambers, London and has offices in Singapore. 

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon (Chief Justice of Singapore) 

Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon was appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on 6 November 2012. 

From 2006 to 2007, he served as a Judicial Commissioner of the Supreme Court. He was appointed Senior Counsel in 2008. In 2010, he was appointed the 6th Attorney-General of Singapore, a post he relinquished in 2012 shortly before his appointment as a Judge of Appeal. He was appointed to the Presidential Council for Minority Rights upon his appointment as Attorney-General in 2010 and was later appointed as its Chairman in 2012, upon his appointment as Chief Justice. 
 
Between 2012 and 2020, Chief Justice Menon served on the Governing Board of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration, and he has been serving as a member of the International Chamber of Commerce Governing Body for Dispute Resolution Services since 2021. 
 
He is also an elected member of the American Law Institute, an Honorary Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in England and the President of the Singapore Academy of Law. Chief Justice Menon was conferred an Honorary Doctorate in Laws by the University of Western Australia in 2022 for his services to the law. 

Senior Judge Loretta Preska (Former Chief Justice, US District Courts, Southern District of NY, USA) 

Judge Preska was appointed United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York on August 12, 1992 and entered duty on September 18, 1992. She served as Chief Judge from June 1, 2009 to the May 31, 2016. Judge Preska received a B.A. from the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York in 1970, a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law in 1973, and an LL.M. in Trade Regulation from New York University Law School in 1978. Following graduation from Fordham, Judge Preska was an associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP and an associate and, beginning in January 1983, a partner at Hertzog, Calamari & Gleason until her induction as a United States District Judge in September 1992. 

Sir Geoffrey Vos (Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice, England and Wales) 

Sir Geoffrey Vos was appointed Master of the Rolls and Head of Civil Justice in England and Wales on 11 January 2021. As a member of the LawtechUK Panel and as chairman of its UK Jurisdiction Taskforce, he contributes to the government-backed initiative supporting the technological transformation of the UK legal sector. 
Prior to his appointment as Master of the Rolls, Sir Geoffrey was Chancellor of the High Court from October 2016, responsible for its Chancery Division and the work of the Business and Property Courts. Appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in 2013, he served as President of the European Network of Councils for the Judiciary from 2015 to 2016. 
Sir Geoffrey began his judicial career with appointment as a deputy High Court Judge in 1999. Having sat in the Courts of Appeal of Jersey and Guernsey between 2005 and 2009, and in the Court of Appeal of the Cayman Islands between 2008 and 2009, he was appointed as a High Court Judge in October 2009. 
Sir Geoffrey was chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation from 2008-2011. He is a Master of the Bench at both the Inner Temple and Lincolns Inn and is an honorary fellow of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. 

Mr Justice Robin Knowles is the Judge with day-to-day responsibility for SIFoCC, he is supported by the Secretariat who are based in London.  

In England & Wales, Sir Robin sits in the High Court, in Commercial Court, the Administrative Court, and the Court of Appeal Criminal Division. He is a designated judge of the Financial List. Before appointment to the High Court, he sat as a Recorder in the Crown Court for 15 years, and as a Deputy High Court Judge in both the Commercial Court and the Chancery Division. He is a qualified mediator and has sat as an arbitrator. He was elected a Bencher of Middle Temple and was Chairman of the Commercial Bar Association. 
 
With Sir Bernard Rix, Sir Robin rewrote the Commercial Court Guide as part of the Woolf Reforms. He was a member of the working party on “supercases” under Sir Richard Aikens. With Sir William Blair, he worked successfully to secure the new Queen’s Counsel system. 
 
He has a career-long involvement in the encouragement and coordination of legal pro bono work, nationally and internationally, and chairs or sits on the board of a number of charities in the field, including the Bar Pro Bono Unit and the National Pro Bono Centre. He was awarded the CBE in 2007 for service to pro bono legal services. 

Miss Adeniké Adewale is the Head of the SIFoCC Secretariat.

Adeniké studied law at the University of Kent, UK and went on to work as a paralegal at Atlantic Solicitors in London. She worked at the Citizen Advice Bureau as a Gateway Assessor and Legal Advisor for two years before working at the Ministry of Justice Headquarters.

She joined the Judicial Office of England and Wales in 2017 where she worked in the Private Office of the Senior Presiding Judge of England and Wales, Lady Justice Julia Macur DBE. Adeniké was tasked with orchestrating Resident Judge Conferences for leadership judges across the UK and managing post/pre appointment of judges. She was secretariat to the Judicial Security Committee as well as the Better Case Management Committee.

Adeniké joined the International Team of the Judicial Office of England and Wales in 2018 and took the role of International Relations and Training Delivery Manager – she oversees all Commonwealth engagements involving training and relations. She works closely with senior judiciary from around the world and is currently involved in projects concerning the development of a Judicial College in Zambia as well as Magistracy training in various states across Nigeria.  She now Heads the Secretariat to SIFoCC and is also the International Strategy Advisor at the Judicial Office.