Keith Harper

Keith Harper graduated from Cardiff University; holds a British Foreign Going Master’s certificate; and is qualified as an English lawyer.

During more than 40 years in the Shipping Industry he has served at sea on a wide variety of vessels with P&O and the Swire Group (with whom he had command experience on several offshore vessels).  Keith then worked in private practice for Watson Farley and Thomas Cooper as a shipping lawyer in London.

From the year 2000 he was an in-house lawyer for Wijsmuller, then A. P. Moller – Maersk’s towage and salvage division, SVITZER, then Ardent.  He was based with SVITZER in the UK, Denmark and The Netherlands; where he also worked for Smit Lamnalco before returning to the UK in 2016.

He was the Director of Group Legal Affairs for SvitzerWijsmuller A/S in Copenhagen and on the Supervisory Board of SVITZER Salvage BV.  He has lectured to the Copenhagen Business School MBA in Shipping and Logistics; was a speaker at the WISTA conference in London at IMO, BIMCAT Bahamas and the Dublin Marine Claims Conference.

Keith has been involved in shipbuilding, sale and purchase and charterparty disputes and his areas of expertise are in tendering, salvage and towage.

His case experience also includes:

• Shipbuilding
• Sale and purchase
• Charterparty disputes
• Tendering
• Salvage
• Towage