Testimonials

As President of Harsco Metals in Asia Pacific I worked closely with Richard as General Counsel for MEAP , throughout Asia and Australasia. His input and management of all legal work on critical projects for the Company in China and India and Australia was exemplary and helped lead to the successful implementation of ground breaking technology Joint Ventures in China particularly, where the protection of US intellectual property was paramount to managing the risk. Richard is a very experienced international lawyer and I recommend him without hesitation.     

As former Group Commercial Director of Gulftainer I worked with Richard on many sensitive commercial projects where his tact and empathy to understand the governance and global compliance regimes helped mitigate commercial and legal risk. He focuses on solutions and can challenge the status quo to help improve commercial objectives whilst understanding the wider regulatory framework.    

Whilst Head of M & A at Hunnebeck GMBH in Germany, Richard was the General Counsel for Harsco Corp in Europe, he helped me develop an M & A strategy and negotiate all types of legal issues associated with purchasing and managing large formwork businesses in Eastern Europe (Latvia and Romania, and France and Germany in particular ) where labor, HSSE and tax issues required careful governance and empathy to deliver and implement seamless compliance policies and FCPA objectives to US Leadership. 

I worked with Richard at BP Gas and Power on a number of strategic international Gas and LNG projects in Egypt and Spain and I have no reservation in recommending his international legal ability. He is a bilingual and pragmatic lawyer that sees through commercial issues to focus on sustainable legal solutions and relationships.

As the former CEO of Gulftainer I worked with Richard as the Group General Counsel for nearly 3 years. Some of the projects we worked on were in challenging international markets such as Brazil, Iraq, Lebanon and Mozambique to name a few. He is an experienced manager of legal and commercial risk and he also understands the sensitivities of international compliance and ABC. Richard has many years of global legal experience and I have no hesitation in recommending his legal services. 

I work with Richard on legal projects in the Middle East and in Spain at present and as the former CTO of Harsco Metals I worked closely with him in Europe, The Middle East and Asia and his ability to engage in and understand the pragmatic sensitivities of legal risk in 'frontier' projects with different legal systems was impressive and I have no hesitation in recommending his legal services to any multinational company.  

As former Group Director of Finance and Investments of Gulftainer I worked closely with Richard Blair, then Group General Counsel, on Port investment projects in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, USA, Russia, Scandinavia, South East Asia and East Africa. All projects had complex contract issues and required tactful stakeholder engagement and I have no hesitation in recommending Richard to deliver best in class legal support to any international private equity project where his commercial acumen and skill will help any investment leader recognise opportunity and solutions alike and mitigate the risk proportionately.. 

While Legal Manager for BP Venezuela Exploration & Production, I had the pleasure of working with Richard in Venezuela, he was Group Head of Acquisitions and Divestments, on several complex upstream asset divestments. He has a keen legal mind, is very client oriented and is a creative and effective problem solver who doesn't lose sight of the need for practical solutions to complex commercial problems. I highly recommend him.   

I use the legal and management services of Richard to set up and run our business in the Middle East. His ability to engage with customers, regulators and partners is excellent and I fully recommend his management skills to other corporates that may need assistance in the UAE and beyond.