Christopher Todd

Chris is a dispute resolution lawyer with around 30 years’ experience.  In that role he helps clients manage serious business conflict.  His approach is to listen, quickly get on top of the facts, understand what the client’s options are and advise accordingly. He tries to think strategically about the problem and focus on generating possible solutions.  Using court processes and pleadings are only one available route, and Chris believes that it is often more effective to use parallel processes.  As a trained commercial mediator and negotiation specialist, he explores the opportunities that consensual dispute resolution can provide, often in tandem with court processes. In this way, he often helps clients avoid lengthy litigation and construct workable solutions that are satisfactory for all parties.  Increasingly, he works across borders for multinational businesses that are growing in Africa and encountering increasing complexity as they do so, including heightened scrutiny from regulators in their home jurisdictions. Chris has assisted multinationals with investigations into alleged fraud and corruption, including investigations with parties in Mauritius, Ghana, South Africa and the Middle East. He has also conducted training on group corporate HR policies in Kenya, Nigeria and Angola.  In South Africa, Chris has been involved in investigating high-profile corruption matters for state-owned enterprises and in 2021 gave evidence at the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture. He has served as an acting judge of the Labour Court and of the High Court in Johannesburg, and as mediator, arbitrator, or chairing other private tribunals.  Chris has honours degrees from the Universities of Cape Town and Oxford, and is co-author of the leading South African work on the employment consequences of business restructuring and outsourcing, “Business Transfers and Employment Rights in South Africa”, Lexis Nexis Butterworths, 2004. He is also co- author of “Contracts of Employment”, Siber Ink 2008, author of “Collective Bargaining Law”, Siber Ink 2004, and co-author of Commercial Mediation: A User’s Guide, Juta, 2012.