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David Rutherford

Senior Associate

Portrait of David Rutherford

David Rutherford

Senior Associate

Contact
CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP
Cannon Place
78 Cannon Street
London
EC4N 6AF
United Kingdom
Languages English

David Rutherford is a Senior Associate at CMS, London, with 10 years of experience working in the oil & gas, energy transition and maritime sectors, having joined the firm as a trainee in 2009.

Experience covers a range of disciplines within those sectors, including procurement, supply chain, project and infrastructure development and bespoke financing arrangements.

His clients include oil majors, state energy companies, independents, contractors and vessel owners. He has been on long-term secondments to Maersk in Copenhagen, BP in Aberdeen, BG and Shell in Thames Valley Park and GDF Suez (now Neptune) and OMV in London.  

He is very familiar with: vessel chartering, drilling contracts, wells goods and services contracts, subsea construction, EPC (and its variants), CITAs, TPAs, TPOSAs and JOAs.

With more than 450 energy and climate change lawyers, including over 100 partners, the CMS Energy and Climate Change practice is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Led from its centres of excellence such as London and Aberdeen, the practice works across 75 offices globally. Building on 40 years of experience advising on power, oil & gas and renewables through to energy disputes, emerging areas and Energy Transition, CMS is uniquely placed to ensure clients receive advice best suited to their commercial needs and to our collective future.

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Relevant experience

  • Maersk Drilling in relation to its unique funding, service and alliance arrangements with SeaPulse and related service and alliance arrangements with Halliburton and Petrofac.
  • Oilfield services provider in relation to its USD 1bn synthetic equity investment in an oil field development in Western Africa.
  • Dragon LNG in relation to various capacity, power and environmental matters associated with the LNG terminal in Wales.
  • BG/Shell: procurement support during the takeover and assisting in relation to a long term services agreement in connection with the Lake Charles LNG facilities.
  • GDF Suez (now Neptune) in relation to the development of the Cygnus Field (£1.4 billion shallow water gas field development; largest North Sea gas discovery in 30 years) and Juliet Field (sub-sea tie-back).
  • An international owner, operator and manager of LNG carriers on a conversion contract to create an FSRU to serve the south eastern European gas market.
  • NEAC Compressor Service on its global arrangements for the supply of reciprocating compressors with an oil supermajor.
  • Significant experience in drilling contracts, drilling unit sharing arrangements, vessel charters (time and voyage) and infrastructure contracts. 
  • Advising a decommissioning services contractor on the creation of a suite of decommissioning contracts.
  • Advising shippers (including department stores and supermarkets) and freight forwarders in connection with vessel charters.
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Education

2008 – LL.M. (Dist.), University of Nottingham

2007 – LL.B. (Hons.), University of Nottingham

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Expertise

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03/08/2021
Oil & Gas – You re­ject if you want to, the Product is not for re­jec­tion!
The Com­mer­cial Court has de­cided that a Buy­er un­der the BP Gen­er­al Terms and Con­di­tions for Sales and Pur­chases of Crude Oil and Pet­ro­leum Products 2015 Edi­tion was not en­titled to re­ject off-spec Product...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
15/04/2021
Law and reg­u­la­tion of con­sequen­tial dam­ages clauses in the en­ergy sec­tor...
1. Do the words “con­sequen­tial loss” have a giv­en mean­ing in law? In Eng­lish law, there are, as a gen­er­al rule, two types of re­cov­er­able loss for a breach of con­tract: “dir­ect loss” and “con­sequen­tial...
Expert Guide Energy & Climate Change
26/03/2021
Oil & Gas / Ship­ping – The Ever Giv­en
The Suez Canal opened in 1869. Along with the Panama Canal, it is one of the most im­port­ant mari­time “short­cuts” ever built. Today, the canal is 193km (120 miles) long and is one of the busiest wa­ter­ways...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
09/03/2021
Oil & Gas: No dam­ages awar­ded for breach of ca­pa­city ob­lig­a­tion in take...
In Brit­ish Gas Trad­ing Lim­ited v Shell UK Lim­ited & An­or [2020] EW­CA Civ 2349, the Court of Ap­peal con­sidered the ‘ramp down’ pro­vi­sions of two ‘take or pay’ long term gas sales agree­ments. Al­though...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
01/03/2021
CMS Oil and Gas 2020 An­nu­al Re­view Pod­cast
Wel­come to the CMS Oil and Gas 2020 An­nu­al Re­view pod­cast and video series. In this series we dis­cuss the latest de­vel­op­ments in Eng­lish Oil and Gas law and what it means for the in­dustry. Top­ics in­clude:Joint...
Publication
21/01/2021
Life after Brexit – Im­plic­a­tions for the up­stream oil and gas sec­tor
Now that the dec­or­a­tions are packed away and the Christ­mas cake crumbs swept up, we are turn­ing our at­ten­tion to the out­come of the last minute agree­ment of the Trade and Co-op­er­a­tion Agree­ment (TCA)...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
16/12/2020
In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest - Winter Edi­tion 2020
Wel­come to the winter edi­tion of the CMS In­ter­na­tion­al Dis­putes Di­gest, the bi­an­nu­al pub­lic­a­tion of CMS’ Dis­pute Res­ol­u­tion prac­tice fea­tur­ing ana­lys­is and com­ment­ary on the ma­jor trends shap­ing the...
Publication
09/12/2020
Oil & Gas / Ship­ping – Black Holes and Rev­el­a­tions
In Dr Jones Yeovil Ltd v The Step­ping Stone Group Ltd [2020] EWHC 2308 (TCC), the Tech­no­logy and Con­struc­tion Court has raised the  spectre of oil and gas com­pan­ies not be­ing able to re­cov­er full dam­ages...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
12/10/2020
Oil & Gas / Ship­ping: what loss does de­mur­rage li­quid­ate?
In K Line Pte Ltd v. Pri­minds Ship­ping (HK) Co Ltd (Etern­al Bliss) [2020] EWHC 2373 (Comm), the Com­mer­cial Court has taken the op­por­tun­ity to re­solve a “long-stand­ing un­cer­tainty on a point of law”...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
07/08/2020
Oil & Gas: Resolv­ing in­con­sist­ent qual­ity de­term­in­a­tion pro­vi­sions for...
In Septo Trad­ing Inc. v Tin­trade Lim­ited [2020] EWHC 1795 the Com­mer­cial Court con­sidered wheth­er a cer­ti­fic­ate of qual­ity for fuel oil was fi­nal and bind­ing on the parties where the spe­cif­ic terms agreed...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
07/08/2020
Oil & Gas / Ship­ping – Com­mer­cial Court Ex­am­ines Leg­al Ef­fect of “Sub­ject...
In the con­text of a crude oil voy­age charter, the Com­mer­cial Court has provided guid­ance on the leg­al ef­fect of “sub­ject to” pro­vi­sions in con­tracts.  In do­ing so, the Com­mer­cial Court noted that...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change