The Rt. Hon. Sir Gary Hickinbottom

Sir Gary, a former Judge of the Court of Appeal, accepts appointments as arbitrator, mediator, assessor and the chair of disciplinary, safeguarding and licensing proceedings, and also conducts independent investigations and inquiries.

Following a double First from Oxford, where he also later tutored, Gary became a solicitor and was a partner in McKenna & Co (later CMS Cameron McKenna) until 2000, when he was made a full-time judge. 

As a solicitor, for many years he acted in construction disputes, before focusing on complex litigation notably pharmaceutical product liability group claims.

On the Bench, Gary was appointed to a succession of judicial posts in both the court and tribunal systems including Designated Civil Judge for Wales, Chief Social Security and Child Support Commissioner, Chief Pensions Appeal Commissioner, President of the Administrative Appeals Chamber of the Upper Tribunal and Deputy Senior President of Tribunals, before being made a High Court Judge and then a Judge of the Court of Appeal.  He has also sat as a High Court Judge in the Falkland Islands, and was appointed to the Bermuda Court of Appeal in 2025. He has chaired a variety of committees and working parties including the project board on judicial training which resulted in the formation of the Judicial College; and the working party on litigants-in-person resulting in “The Hickinbottom Report” which was the basis for reforms in the way in which unrepresented parties were engaged in claims in which they were involved. He chaired a JUSTICE Working Party on Government Outsourcing, which reported in April 2024.

As a judge, he case managed and determined the most complex fact-finding exercises in a wide variety of technical and commercial fields, including personal injury and product liability.  In all courts and tribunals, he spent a substantial amount of his time on public law claims of all types including claims involving governance, and regulatory and disciplinary decisions. 

He retired from the Court of Appeal in 2021 to conduct a Commission of Inquiry into corruption and governance in the British Virgin Islands, which reported in April 2022. In April 2023, he was appointed President of Welsh Tribunals. In 2024, he was appointed Chair of the two independent panels charged with the assessment of the pecuniary losses of claimants whose convictions arising out of the Post Office Horizon scandal have been overturned.

A significant amount of his work as a judge was sport-orientated with a wide range of subjects, including the funding football club, the development of football and other sports grounds, and liability for injuries suffered whilst playing sport. He now sits on commercial arbitrations arising from the world of sport. He is particularly experienced in sitting on sports disciplinary and safeguarding panels, regularly chairing hearings relating to a wide variety of sports. He is currently the Chair of the Judicial Panels for the Premier League, the Lawn Tennis Association and British Wrestling, the Chair of the International Tennis Federation Safeguarding Panel, and a member of the Appeal Board of the British Horseracing Judicial Panel, the National Anti-Doping Panel, the National Safeguarding Panel, the FA Safeguarding Review Panel, and the Sport Resolutions Arbitrators’ Panel.

Gary holds a Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration, has been a registered mediator since 1991 and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators since 1995. He is a Past Master Arbitrator of the Worshipful Company of Arbitrators.