Charles Jay D DELA CRUZ

Introduction

Charles Jay D Dela Cruz is a senior partner at Del Rosario & Del Rosario Law Offices. His practice areas include maritime personal injury disputes, corporate commercial and employment laws.

Acting for protection and indemnity (P&I) clubs and shipowners’ interest for nearly three decades, he has done extensive work on personal injury claims arbitrated or litigated in domestic tribunals and foreign jurisdiction including US, UK, Panama, Greece, the Marshall Islands and Singapore, and has been tapped as expert on Philippine law and jurisprudence relating to said legal proceedings.

He acts as a legal advisor and corporate secretary to foreign-affiliated organisations particularly Norwegian interests including the Norwegian Maritime Foundation of the Philippines, and the Philippines Norway Business Council (PNBC), aside from sitting as Board Trustee.

In 2004, he was the youngest to assume as President and Chairman of the Board of the Maritime Law Association of the Philippines (MARLAW), and is now part of its Board of Advisers. He is a member of the Board of Trustees (concurrently asst corporate secretary and co-chair of the maritime committee) of the Philippine Bar Association (PBA), and also served in the Board of the Law Foundation of Makati. He was vice chairman of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA Insurance Committee), and a member of the Philippine Institute of Arbitration (PIArb).

Aside from legal advocacy, Dela Cruz shares his expertise as resource speaker and/or chairman in various international and local conferences mostly on marine, logistics and employment law issues (some of which, MCLE-accredited). One of the presentations he delivered dealt with “Marine Oil Pollution Scenario, The Philippine Setting” at the Inter-Pacific Bar Association Annual Conference held in New Delhi, India in February 2003. He has been invited by the National Conciliation and Mediation Board (NCMB) to speak at their accreditation and retooling programs for voluntary arbitrators, retired judiciary members, conciliators and mediators.

He obtained his law degree from San Beda College of Law in 1995 and his Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from De La Salle University in 1989. He participated in the University of Southampton, UK’s Maritime Law and Practice course held in Singapore in 2010.