Matt Gatenby
Senior Partner
Part of the Leadership Team at Travlaw, Matt Gatenby has over two decades of experience in the travel law industry and so likes to think he has seen it all – even though the ever dynamic industry means that just isn’t possible!
Friendly and approachable, Matt is part of the leadership team at Travlaw. His day-to-day work see Matt proud to serve a vast array of tour operators, travel agents, trade associations, insurers and their underwriters. His skill-set encompasses all levels of work, not only the complex multi-track matters which he attracts so many instructions for, but also various other civil litigation cases which clients trust in the firm to handle. His well-established defendant personal injury practice revolves around two main aspects. Firstly, single party claims for trips, slips and more complex cases such as serious and fatal injuries. Secondly he has a long history or successfully dealing with illness cases. Examples of such cases are legionnaire’s outbreaks as well illness group and class actions involving norovirus, salmonella, cryptosporidium and other types of food poisoning. Long before the infamous rise in illness claims in the ‘tweens, Matt was dealing with gastric cases! His work in this area has seen Matt ranked as a leading travel lawyer in Chambers & Partners for a number of years now.
Matt has contributed to various publications including Travel Law Quarterly and Solicitors Journal. He has blogged on various issues, featured in various newsletters and has commented on industry issues in leading trade press publications Travel Weekly and Travel Trade Gazette as well as national and global media such as BBC News. A popular trainer and speaker, Matt is often asked to deliver in-house seminars, appear on panel debates and has also spoken many times in the UK and abroad at conferences. These include speaking at The ABTA Legal Seminar, ABTOT, PEOPIL, ECC-NET, AGTO, AITO, UKInbound, the Clarity Travel Management conference, BTA conferences as well as at various Travlaw events.
More recently Matt has headed up Travlaw’s “Brexit” team, advising the travel & leisure industry on the various potential issues arising from everybody’s favourite referendum and also helped lead the firms advice and support to travel businesses following Covid-19.