It with great sadness I report the passing of Paul Darling KC. He will be known to most if not all of you as a leading Silk in construction, engineering and energy law. A larger-than-life character, he was an English commercial law barrister, King's Counsel and chair of the Horserace Betting Levy Board.
Late of 39 Essex Chambers and Keating Chambers before that.
Paul grew up in Cleadon in County Durham and went to Tonstall School in Sunderland before attending Winchester College and then St Edmund Hall College, Oxford.
Paul was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1983, and in 1999 appointed King's Counsel. He was also called to the Northern Ireland Bar.
In 2010, Paul became head of Keating Chambers where he remained until 2017. Then after 34 years at the bar he then took the step of moving chambers, joining general commercial set, 39 Essex Chambers.
Paul’s areas of practice include construction and engineering, procurement, domestic and international arbitration. He was Treasurer of Middle Temple for 2024.
Paul will be remembered for having been instructed as lead counsel on several significant cases.
- Between 1991 and 2003 he represented the contractor in McAlpine v Panatown.
- Darling represented the appellants, Scarborough Borough Council, in a 1997 case concerning the collapse of Scarborough's Holbeck Hall Hotel into the sea (captured live on television news).
- In the 2011 case of Flannery & Another v Halifax Estate Agencies Limited, Darling represented the claimants.
In 2006 Paul was appointed as a non-executive member of the Horserace Totalisator Board or “Tote”. Between 2008 and 2014, he was a government-appointed member of the Horserace Betting Levy Board. He was chairman of the Sports Grounds Safety Authority between 2009 and 2015. He was appointed chairman of the Association of British Bookmakers in 2014. In 2020 he was appointed chairman of the Horserace Betting Levy Board, and was reappointed in July 2023.
Paul was a keen blogger too and had a great website https://pauldarlingkc.co.uk/
He will be sorely missed.