Michael Gordon Bloch KC (born 18 October 1951) is a British

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...

who is a member of

Blackstone Chambers Blackstone Chambers is a set of barristers' chambers in the Temple district of central London. Established in the 1950s, as of 2022 it had 119 tenants, of whom more than 50 are silks. Current notable members include Robert Anderson, Michael Be ...

Life

Born at

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, and extends from Watling Street, the A5 road (Roman Watling Street) to Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland. The area forms the northwest part of the Lon ...

, a son of the marriage of John Bloch and Thelma E. Platzky, Bloch was educated at

Bedales School Bedales School is a co-educational, boarding and day independent school in the village of Steep, near the market town of Petersfield in Hampshire, England. It was founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventio ...

Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Corpus Christi College (full name: "The College of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary", often shortened to "Corpus"), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. From the late 14th century through to the early 19th century ...

, where he graduated BA and MA, and the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution f ...

, where he gained the degree of

M.Phil. The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil ...

He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

from

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1979."BLOCH, Michael Gordon", in ''Who's Who 2014'' (A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014) In 1975 Bloch married firstly Caroline S. Williams, in

Wandsworth Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Gre ...

. They had two daughters, Susannah and Claudia Bloch. Bloch first joined the

One Essex Court One Essex Court is a set of barristers' chambers in London, specialising in commercial litigation, which was founded in 1966. Currently comprising 131 full-time members, 52 of whom are ''silks'' or King's Counsel. One Essex Court's members inclu ...

Chambers,Kate Beioley
Michael Bloch QC quits Wilberforce for Blackstone Chambers
at thelawyer.com dated 25 October 2013, accessed 20 March 2018 and was appointed a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

in 1998. The same year, he married secondly Lady Camilla Bingham, a fellow barrister and one of the daughters of

Lord Lucan Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934 – disappeared 8 November 1974, declared death in absentia, declared dead 3 February 2016), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British Peerages in the United Kingdom, peer who di ...

. In September 2000 Bloch moved from One Essex Court to Wilberforce Chambers. In 2013 he resigned from there to join

, which was reported as a significant boost for Blackstone, filling a gap in commercial and arbitration law left by the departure of Thomas Beazley QC.

Notable cases

In March 2004 Bloch appeared in the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

representing the Bankers Trust in the case of Department of Economic Policy and Development of the

City of Moscow Moscow ( , American English, US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia. The city stands on t ...

Bankers Trust Bankers Trust was a historic American banking organization. The bank merged with Alex. Brown & Sons in 1997 before being acquired by Deutsche Bank in 1999. Deutsche Bank sold the Trust and Custody division of Bankers Trust to State Street Corpor ...

Company and International Industrial Bank, before Sir Andrew Morritt, Mance LJ and Carnwath LJ. The case was to decide whether a judgment dismissing an application to challenge an

arbitration award An arbitration award (or arbitral award) is a determination on the merits by an arbitration tribunal in an arbitration, and is analogous to a judgment in a court of law. It is referred to as an 'award' even where all of the claimant's claims fail ...

should be published. The Court found that in general the public interest required judgments to be published, but in this instance it decided that the judgment at issue should not be. In 2008 Bloch acted for

Lucasfilm Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC is an American film and television production company and a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is a business segment of The Walt Disney Company. The studio is best known for creating and producing the ''Star Wars'' and ' ...

in its dispute with the British engineer Andrew Ainsworth of

Shepperton Design Studios Shepperton Design Studios is an England-based manufacturer of ''Star Wars'' replica props and memorabilia that was sued by Lucasfilm for copyright infringement. This manufacturer made authentic Star Wars replica props and memorabilia, based in Eng ...

over the rights to the stormtrooper helmets as used in ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

''. In 2011 this case arrived in the

Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

Lucasfilm Ltd v Ainsworth was a 2011 court ruling by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.. The case concerned an intellectual property dispute over the production of Lucasfilm's Stormtrooper costumes by model maker Andrew Ainsworth. Mr Ainsworth argued that the he ...

, in which Bloch and Jonathan Sumption QC represented Lucasfilm. The Court decided that the Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet was not a sculpture for the purposes of the

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988c 48, also known as the CDPA, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that received Royal Assent on 15 November 1988. It reformulates almost completely the statutory basis of copyright law ( ...

. In 2013 Bloch was leading counsel for

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

in its battle with

Cadbury Cadbury, formerly Cadbury's and Cadbury Schweppes, is a British multinational confectionery company fully owned by Mondelez International (originally Kraft Foods) since 2010. It is the second largest confectionery brand in the world after Mar ...

s over the purple colour of its "Dairy Milk" bar wrappers. In 2014 he appeared in the High Court for Lush Cosmetics, who successfully challenged

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

's use of the word "LUSH", their registered trade mark, as a Google Adword and for directing Amazon web customers searching for "Lush" to similar products made by competitors. John Baldwin QC, sitting as a deputy judge, held that Amazon had thereby infringed the trade mark under Directive 2008/95/EC, and that the two Amazon defendants, one incorporated in the United Kingdom and the other in Luxembourg, were jointly liable, as they had "joined together and agreed to work together in the furtherance of a common plan". In 2016 Bloch represented

Simon Le Bon Simon John Charles Le Bon (born 27 October 1958) is a British singer. He is best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the new wave band Duran Duran and its offshoot Arcadia. Le Bon has received three Ivor Novello Awards from the British ...

Duran Duran Duran Duran () are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Birmingham in 1978 by singer and bassist Stephen Duffy, keyboardist Nick Rhodes and guitarist/bassist John Taylor (bass guitarist), John Taylor. With the addition of drummer Roger ...

, and other defendants in the High Court case of Gloucester Place Music Ltd v Simon Le Bon & Others, which resulted in a judgement by Mr Justice Arnold likely to have significant implications in the recorded music industry.Gloucester Place Music Ltd v Simon Le Bon & Ors
016EWHC 3091 (Ch), dated 5 December 2016, accessed 19 March 2019

References

External links

Michael Bloch QC
at Blackstonechambers.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Bloch, Michael Gordon 1951 births Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Alumni of the University of East Anglia British King's Counsel English barristers Members of Lincoln's Inn People educated at Bedales School People from Hampstead Living people 20th-century King's Counsel