Blank Rome LLP

Jeremy Harwood is a member of our Maritime Emergency Response Team (MERT).

Jeremy Harwood spent 19 years at Healy & Baillie LLP as a senior partner focusing his practice in admiralty and commercial disputes before the firm's 2006 combination with Blank Rome LLP.

At Blank Rome, Mr. Harwood concentrates his practice in international dispute resolution of commercial, shipping insurance, reinsurance, and insolvency matters. He is involved in all areas of international arbitration, including award enforcement against foreign sovereigns or their agencies. He also sits as an arbitrator on a regular basis.

He also has acknowledged experience on the interplay of U.S. bankruptcy law with admiralty issues in maritime bankruptcy cases, on which he has lectured around the world and written many articles. He represents debtors, Chapter 15 debtors, creditors and creditors’ committees in maritime and non-maritime cases, including most recently The Containership Company (TCC) A/S, Daewoo Logistics Corp., Royal Olympic Cruises, Derecktor Shipyards, Millennium Seacarriers, Great Western Steamship and Oceantrade Corp. He has been involved in most of the major U.S. maritime bankruptcies since 1986, such as U.S. Lines, Prudential Lines, Lykes Lines.

Mr. Harwood is an attorney of record in numerous reported commercial court decisions and arbitration awards. He has an extensive appellate practice, having argued over two dozen successful U.S. Circuit Court appeals.

He is the New York legal correspondent for The Steamship Mutual Underwriting Association (Bermuda) Ltd. and The Korean P&I Club.

Mr. Harwood was educated at Charterhouse School, England, the University of North Carolina, where he was a Morehead Scholar, and Oxford University, where he obtained his law degree. He was called to the English Bar by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple. After R.M.A. Sandhurst he served in The First Royal Tank Regiment in West Germany. 

Mr. Harwood has been listed for several years in International Who’s Who Legal “Shipping & Maritime” lawyers and was one of its ten “most highly regarded individuals” worldwide in that category in the 2010 and 2011 editions. He is recognized as one of “Shipping’s 100 Most Influential People” by Tradewinds 2012.

REPRESENTATIVE MATTERS

• Filed the first Chapter 15 recognition case under the new Danish insolvency act in The Containership Company (TCC) A/S case in New York in June 2011.
• Filed Daewoo Logistics Chapter 15 case.
• Represented largest unsecured creditor of Derecktor Shipyards—successfully challenged confirmation of plan prejudicial to creditor.
• Represented creditors’ committee of Danish shipping company in Chapter 11—Interbulk Ltd.
• Represented the Bank of Ireland in a vessel arrest/foreclosure case in Houston, Texas, March 2011.
• Represented the Steamship Mutual Underwriting Association in the Eleventh Circuit and obtained a reversal of the trial court's finding on its lien for an insurance premium that was then awarded in full in Royal Olympic Cruises bankruptcy case.
• Represented Suzlon Energy in seeking emails from a Hotmail account for which Microsoft claimed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act protections for its foreign citizen owner, a case of first impression heard in the Ninth Circuit in July 2011.
• Vacated, upon remand by Second Circuit, an anti-suit injunction entered by the bankruptcy court leading to a mediated resolution of claims and payment by the plaintiff in Millennium Seacarriers.
• Represented South American tanker owner in claims arising from fire and explosion—obtained defense verdict after trial in Georgia and dismissal, without recovery, other claims in Connecticut District Court.
• Argued Shipping Corporation of India v. Jaldhi in Second Circuit and wrote petition for certiorari.
• Injunction of a Chilean arbitration proceeding in breach of an obligation to arbitrate in New York.
• Reversal, on motion for reconsideration, of a trial court’s decision to direct arbitration by “equitable estoppel.”

COMMUNITY SERVICE & AFFILIATIONS

In 2011, Mr. Harwood was promoted to vice chair of the Maritime and Transport Law Committee, which is the second largest committee of the International Bar Association.