A Greek qualified lawyer, admitted to the Athens Bar Association in 1982, Klearchos Kanellopoulos has worked in private practice for most of his career, as well as, “in-house” lawyer for an international ship-operators, agents, contractors and forwarders maintaining offices in New York, Hong-Kong, London, Piraeus, Constantza and Suez, between 1985 and 1992. In parallel to his legal duties, Klearchos participated in risk assessment, credit, compliance and management teams. In March 1992, he set up “Pantazis-Kanellopoulos & Associates Law Firm”, in which he remained a senior partner until the firm’s dissolution in June 2013. From 2014 to mid 2016 he worked with “KLC” law firm as head of its shipping department and after that as a free- lancer, cooperating as an associate with LexArtis law firm.
His areas of practice include non-contentious corporate work (such as formation of domestic and foreign onshore and/or offshore companies with special focus on businesses involving ship-ownership, ship management and maritime related activities, including group structures, ship- taxation, M&A’s, corporate restructuring, joint ventures etc), commercial work (such as contracts, project finance, trading, insurance and re-insurance, insolvency, aviation, transport, agency, distributorship and cross-border transactions), litigation (such as general commercial, contractual and shipping (admiralty and/or “dry shipping”) related disputes, administrative proceedings, arbitration etc), maritime (such as marine pollution, salvage, ship arrests, marine insurance, Protection and Indemnity claims, charter-party and bill of lading disputes, ship/yacht sale and purchase, ship building contracts and finance, ship/yacht registration and mortgages etc).
Over the years Klearchos has worked with and represented a number of leading organizations, groups and companies.
Klearchos has been guest speaker in Lloyd’s List organized seminars, a contributor to various legal publications, a columnist with the daily financial paper “Express” during the years 1996-2000 and a member of the panel of judges of the “Greek Shipping Hall of Fame”. Klearchos speaks English and French.