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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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15/11/2022
Oil, gas and com­mod­it­ies: Force ma­jeure
In MUR Ship­ping BV v RTI Ltd [2022] EW­CA Civ 1406 the Court of Ap­peal over­turned the Com­mer­cial Court’s judg­ment and found that a ‘reas­on­able en­deav­ours’ ob­lig­a­tion in a force ma­jeure clause could...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
05/09/2022
Oil & Gas: Con­trac­tu­al pro­tec­tions in scrap­ping de­com­mis­sioned oil as­sets...
The repu­ta­tion­al risks of de­com­mis­sion­ing as­sets have again hit the news. It is an im­port­ant re­mind­er of the im­port­ance of hav­ing the prop­er con­trac­tu­al pro­tec­tions in place when pre­par­ing to scrap de­com­mis­sioned...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
10/08/2022
En­ergy – pun­it­ive in­terest where there is “Sig­ni­fic­ant Con­nec­tion with...
Sum­mary The Late Pay­ment of Com­mer­cial Debts (In­terest) Act 1998 im­plies a term in Eng­lish law con­tracts for the sup­ply of goods and/or ser­vices in the event of late pay­ment by the pur­chaser.  This ‘stat­utory...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
03/05/2022
Oil & Gas: Or­al con­tract – which court may hear the case? 
In Ad­dax En­ergy SA v Petro Trade Inc [2022] EWHC 237 (Comm), the Com­mer­cial Court con­sidered an ap­plic­a­tion con­cern­ing wheth­er an al­leged or­al con­tract for the sup­ply of pet­ro­leum products con­tained an...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
21/04/2022
En­ergy: Con­sequences of not ex­er­cising an op­tion
In Thurcroft Power Lim­ited v. Volta En­ergy Group Lim­ited [2022] EWHC 338 (Comm), the Com­mer­cial Court de­cided that an op­tion agree­ment con­cern­ing the early stages of a bat­tery stor­age de­vel­op­ment did...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
23/03/2022
Oil & Gas with­draw­als: clean break or on­go­ing li­ab­il­ity?
The an­nounce­ment of Shell’s with­draw­al from Cambo came at the end of a tur­bu­lent year of oil prices, with Brent Crude trad­ing in the low 50s at the be­gin­ning of 2021 and peak­ing in the mid 80s be­fore...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
28/01/2022
Oil & Gas – In­vest­ing in Ni­ger­ia – Re­formed Pet­ro­leum Law enters in­to force
With a GDP in 2020 of just over US$450bn, Ni­ger­ia is by some stretch the largest eco­nomy in Africa (with Egypt in second place with a GBP of just over US$360bn). It is one of the world’s lar­ger oil...
Law-Now
03/12/2021
De­mur­rage re­vis­ited: What loss does it li­quid­ate?
In K Line PTE Ltd v Pri­minds Ship­ping (HK) Co Ltd (“Etern­al Bliss”) [2021] EW­CA Civ 1712, the Court of Ap­peal has re­vis­ited the Com­mer­cial Court de­cision that sought to re­solve a ‘long-stand­ing...
Law-Now Energy & Climate Change
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
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