XXIV Old Buildings pays tribute to Sir Anthony Colman (1938-2017)

On 8 August 2017 before the start of proceedings in the DIFC Court before Justice Sir Jeremy Cooke, Michael Black QC, Tom Montagu-Smith QC and Arshad Ghaffar paid tribute to Sir Anthony Colman, who had served at Deputy Chief Justice of the DIFC Courts and who died on 27 July 2017, on behalf of themselves and the other members of Chambers.

Michael Black said, “My colleagues and I would like publicly to express our very considerable sorrow at the death of Sir Anthony Colman, former Deputy Chief Justice of this court.

It has been a privilege for all of us to have appeared before him many times not only in this court but in his previous capacity as a judge of the commercial court in London and more recently as an arbitrator. Speaking personally, he was the most courteous, patient and good-natured judge I have had the pleasure to address in nearly 40 years at the bar.

He had a genuine love of the law and his judgments and awards always bore the hallmark of a fine mind in being both eminently readable and illuminating. 

He was committed to developing this jurisdiction as a world class centre for dispute resolution and was enthusiastically looking forward to developing his new role as chairman of the Emirates Maritime Arbitration Centre.

We will miss his contribution and, more importantly, we will miss him.”

Sir Jeremy (who was for several years Sir Anthony’s colleague on the bench of the Commercial Court in London) said that the Court associated itself with the tribute and that he too would miss Sir Anthony.