Guy joined Carter-Ruck in 1988 and has been a partner since 1990. As head of the firm’s International department Guy has a wide-ranging practice in the field of Public International Law, European Law and Human Rights involving administrative and regulatory processes with an international or diplomatic context. His work is at the forefront of the field of challenges to asset freezing measures, or ‘targeted sanctions’. He is highly rated in these areas by the legal directories and is ranked as a Band 1 Sanctions Law expert by Chambers & Partners.
Having developed his media law expertise under the personal tutelage of Peter Carter-Ruck, Guy has since acquired a special expertise in the law relating to economic sanctions.
Guy has represented and advised many clients who have challenged such sanctions measures before a range of tribunals including the High Court in London, the General Court and the ECJ in Luxembourg as well as before the United Nations Office of the Ombudsperson in New York. Frequently Guy has been able to deploy his media law expertise in the context of his sanctions work.
Guy coordinated the leading case on targeted sanctions, heading successful international efforts by Saudi Arabian businessman and philanthropist Sheikh Yassin Abdullah Kadi since 2001, to overturn asset freezing orders around the world, wrongly imposed in the aftermath of the horrific 11 September attacks.
Guy is also a media litigation and reputation management specialist and his practice has a particular emphasis on copyright, trademarks, breach of confidence and other intellectual property issues arising in a media context.
- Guy is the lead partner representing His Majesty King Juan Carlos I in the defence of the claim brought against him in the High Court of England and Wales by Corinna Zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn. In December 2022 the Court of Appeal (King LJ, Simler LJ and Popplewell LJ) delivered judgment upholding His Majesty’s claim to sovereign immunity in respect of allegations made against him by the claimant of conduct pre-dating His abdication of the Spanish throne. The press release is available here.
- Guy is the lead partner in the high profile and widely publicised sanctions case of the late former Egyptian president of Egypt, Mohamed Hosni Elsayed Mubarak, and members of his family. In December 2020 the highest court in the European Union, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), annulled sanctions imposed on the former President of Egypt and members of his family, ruling that the sanctions were unlawful from the outset. On 1 January 2021 the UK removed the former Egyptian President and his family members from the sanctions list enacted by the UK authorities as a consequence of Brexit, and in March 2021 the EU lifted all remaining sanctions which it had imposed on the Mubarak family. Guy and the team had further success in April 2022 with a judgment of the EU General Court annulling later sanctions which had been imposed on the Mubarak family. The press releases are available here.
- Guy represented Mr Kadi in his two successful appeals to the ECJ in 2008 and 2013. In its 2008 judgment the ECJ delivered a landmark decision in favour of Mr Kadi and struck down EU asset freezing regulations on the ground they breached Mr Kadi’s fundamental human rights. It was as a result of this judgment that the Office of the Ombudsperson was created by the UN Security Council in December 2009.
The ECJ’s judgment in this case, which has become known as Kadi I, has been described by leading academic commentators as ‘the most important judgment ever delivered by the ECJ on the relationship between EC and international law and one of its most important judgments on fundamental rights’.
- Guy advised the prominent film director Taghi Amirani and the pre-eminent film editor Walter Murch (the Godfather I, II and III, Apocalypse Now, The Conversation, The English Patient) concerning their film Coup 53, a historical documentary about the CIA/MI6 sponsored coup in Iran which took place in August 1953. The film has won many awards and it has received numerous accolades which can be viewed here
- Guy has represented clients from Syria, Tunisia, Burma (Myanmar) and Zimbabwe in the targeted sanctions field. Guy acted for Burmese national Pye Phyo Tay Za both in his action before the General Court, and subsequent successful appeal to the Grand Chamber of the ECJ, which in March 2012 annulled European asset freezing orders applicable to Mr Tay Za.
- In the media context he has acted for Sovereign States, high-ranking dignitaries, leading business people, universities, celebrities, religious leaders, and multi-national corporations.
- Guy is a member of the British Literary and Copyright Association, Chatham House, the Intellectual Property Lawyers Association, the American Society for International Law and the European Society for International Law.