Paul Jonson

Paul is Head of the Dispute Resolution and Regulatory division and the Dispute Resolution team at Pannone.

The Dispute Resolution team comprises of over 40 lawyers, including partners. Paul qualified in 1994 and has specialised in commercial litigation and arbitration since that time.

Paul’s practice encompasses the following areas:

• boardroom “bust ups”
• breach of restrictive covenants
• commercial fraud
• defamation and privacy claims
• franchise litigation
• freezing injunctions
• intellectual property disputes
• misuse of confidential information issues
• partnership and LLP disputes
• professional negligence claims
• search and seize injunctions
• shareholder disputes
• unfair prejudice petitions
• warranty claims

The majority of disputes in which Paul becomes involved never reach court. Paul is an enthusiastic supporter of alternative dispute resolution techniques such as mediation. Paul first mediated a dispute in 2000 and has settled dozens of cases at mediation since then. 

In November 2010, Paul was awarded Mediation Champion of the Year by CEDR (a leading mediation services provider) in recognition of his commitment to mediation. 

Paul is regarded as a Leader in the Field of commercial litigation in the North West and the Chambers UK Guide has described Paul as ‘focussed, thorough, persistent and knowledgeable’  and ‘commercial and very good with clients’. 

In 2009, Paul obtained a Post-Graduate Diploma in Commercial Intellectual Property Law from Nottingham Law School. 

In 2010, Paul was appointed as a Deputy District Judge on the Northern Circuit. 

Best career moment: I have been lucky enough to be involved in many exciting and interesting cases however if I had to pick one it would be the Ultraframe litigation. I worked with the in-house legal team at Ultraframe and we successfully recovered several million pounds in damages and costs from the defendant following its infringement of the company’s intellectual property rights.  The dispute was very hard fought but we never lost faith.

Notable cases include:

• Bristol & West v May, May & Merrimans (a firm) [1996] 2 All ER 801
• Bristol & West v Fancy & Jackson (a firm) [1997] 4 All ER 582
• Bristol & West v Mothew (a firm) [1996] 4 All ER 698
• Grubb v Price Waterhouse Coopers [2000] All ER (D) 1105
• Hughes v Carratu International [2006] All ER (D) 250 (Jul)
• Ultraframe v Eurocell [2006] EWHC 1344 (Pat)
• Wasabi Frog Limited v Miss Boo Limited [2009] EWHC 2767.