Sir William Blair

Biography

Sir William (Bill) Blair is a former High Court Judge in England and Wales who was Judge in Charge of London’s Commercial Court and a judge of the Financial List.  Before going on the bench, he practised at the English Bar specialising in the law of banking and finance and appearing in many high profile cases, becoming a Queen’s Counsel in 1994, and Chairman of the Commercial Bar Association between 2003 and 2005.

On retiring from the bench, Bill joined 3VB Chambers, a leading set of barristers’ chambers in London, from where he practices as an international arbitrator.  He has had LCIA, ICC and ICSID appointments both as Chair and party-appointed arbitrator. He is a member of the LCIA, and is listed on the Panel of Arbitrators of the Beijing Arbitration Commission (BAC) and the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA). He is also a CEDR qualified mediator.

Bill was the first President of the Board of Appeal of European Supervisory Authorities (a European Union body) from 2012-19.  He is a member of London’s Financial Markets Law Committee, and chairs the Monetary Law Committee of the International Law Association.  He is a judge of the Qatar International Court and Chair of the Regulatory Tribunal of the Qatar Financial Centre, and has sat as a Deputy Judge of the High Court of the Hong Kong SAR. He is a member of the Steering Group of the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts, and a member of the International Commercial Expert Committee of the Supreme People’s Court of China.

In the academic field Bill is Professor of Financial Law and Ethics at Queen Mary University of London and writes and lectures extensively on financial law topics.  He is visiting Professor at various Universities, and expert adviser to Oxford University’s OBOR Institute (dealing with socio-legal issues arising from China's belt and road initiative).  He chairs the Enforcement Decision Making Committee of the Bank of England, which is the UK’s central bank.  He is a member of the Ethics Committee of start-up funder Digital Catapult.