Richard Ryan has more than two decades of front-line experience in business and corporate law. He has acted as Senior/General Counsel (both in-house and on a direct-access basis) for FTSE-level and high-growth companies across defence, aerospace, tech, construction and financial services, steering boards through deals and disputes worth well over £2 billion.

His practice spans the full corporate life-cycle: structuring start-ups, advising on governance and directors’ duties, negotiating complex cross-border joint ventures, M&A warranties and indemnities, and managing global regulatory and export-control risk. Richard has led legal teams for BAE Systems, a prime defence company, with £1.5 billion in bid work, overseen a £700 million contract portfolio and served as the sole legal adviser to its US-based Global Integrated Solutions division. Earlier roles include Head of Legal positions at Leonardo and Willis Towers Watson, where he drafted and negotiated high-value commercial, IP and technology agreements, implemented data-protection frameworks and ran corporate-wide risk and compliance programmes.

A chartered arbitrator and accredited mediator, he regularly resolves shareholder, insolvency and insurance disputes through ADR, safeguarding commercial relationships while minimising cost and disruption. Clients value his board-level commerciality, sector-specific insight and decisive, plain-English advice that keeps transactions moving and businesses growing.

Richard has more than 20 years’ front-line commercial law experience. He structures, drafts and negotiates complex, high-value agreements—spanning cross-border supply, tech-licensing and joint-venture contracts to EPC/PPP infrastructure deals—supporting bid work and contract portfolios exceeding £1.5 billion.

Alongside transactional work, he manages the full dispute-resolution spectrum, steering commercial, insurance and insolvency claims through litigation, arbitration and ADR for clients across defence, aerospace, tech and construction. Boards instruct him for pragmatic, plain-English advice that balances risk, preserves trading relationships and keeps projects moving

Richard advises on every stage of commodities trading and supply—structuring cross-border sale-of-goods contracts, negotiating Incoterms, hedging mechanisms and steering export-control and sanctions compliance.His track record includes transactions in crude oil, EN590 diesel, Jet A-1 aviation fuel, gold and cryptocurrency, and he has counselled a North African national oil company on long-term offtake and regulatory issues. Boards rely on his mix of contractual, insurance and risk-management expertise to keep critical materials moving while protecting margin and reputation.

Richard brings deep construction, engineering and infrastructure expertise. He has led and negotiated major EPC/PPP contracts—including the multi-billion-pound Metronet upgrade of the London Underground—while steering bid work and contract portfolios worth over £1.5 billion for global engineering groups.

Covering both transactional and contentious work, Richard drafts and manages complex project documentation, allocates risk for contractors and insurers, and resolves disputes through litigation, arbitration and ADR across multiple jurisdictions. Boards and project teams rely on his clear, commercially focused advice to keep programmes on time, on budget and compliant.

Richard has advised on Freedom of Information and data-protection matters for more than 20 years. As global data-protection lead for a Plc, he designed and rolled out GDPR-compliant governance across UK-US operations and headed incident-response teams. Additionally, Richard has had significant involvement in disclosures that relate to the Gatwick Airport drone disruption incident—balancing rapid law-enforcement disclosure with privacy obligations.

He also acts before the First-tier Tribunal (Information Rights) in appeals against ICO decisions, giving boards and public bodies clear, commercially focused guidance on FOI strategy, subject-access requests and cross-border data flows.

Richard guides local authorities, public bodies and contractors through every stage of local-government projects—drafting and negotiating public-procurement and governance documentation, and steering complex PPP/EPC deals such as the multi-billion-pound Metronet upgrade of the London Underground and by virtue of working with the Ministry of Defence. He has delivered legal strategy on government-funded critical-national-infrastructure programmes and related contract, risk and compliance issues, and has first-hand regulator insight from an eight-month secondment at the Civil Aviation Authority.

On the contentious side, Richard provides pre-action advice and conducs judicial review challenges to procurement, planning and regulatory decisions—drawing on his advocacy experience in complex litigation over many years.