Webinar with Umer Akram Chaudhry, Antonia Birt, Hafez Virjee, in conjunction with RMA & Co. (26 November 2020).
ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS
Umer Akram Chaudhry has over ten years of experience in handling a wide array of work in dispute resolution, transactional, and advisory practices. Qualified as an Advocate of the High Court in Pakistan and Attorney at Law in New York, his primary focus is on domestic and international dispute resolution. He has appeared as counsel before a variety of fora ranging from the Lahore High Court and the High Court of Sindh to international commercial courts and arbitral tribunals in litigations and arbitrations. Umer started his career as a litigation lawyer at Raja Mohammed Akram & Co. in Lahore, Pakistan, where he was engaged in various commercial and constitutional cases. He was engaged in landmark constitutional cases before the Lahore High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He also represented clients in regulatory matters before the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the Competition Commission of Pakistan. Later, Umer moved to Singapore and worked at Clyde & Co LLP and Rajah & Tann LLP, both internationally ranked amongst top-30 international arbitration practices. He was engaged in a breadth of cases arising from different common and civil law jurisdictions in South and South East Asia and Middle East. He was primarily involved in commercial, joint venture, shareholders, energy infrastructure, and hotel management disputes.
Antonia Birt is a partner in the International Arbitration group. She represents clients at every stage of complex and high-value commercial and construction disputes. Ms. Birt has a broad range of experience from settlement negotiation, mediation and other alternative dispute resolution methods, to formal dispute resolution proceedings and enforcements. She represents state, domestic and multinational clients in a variety of industry sectors including oil and gas, energy, real estate, and distribution. Ms. Birt has acted on arbitrations under the rules of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), Dubai International Financial Centre and the London Court of International Arbitration (DIFC-LCIA), Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), seated in the major arbitral centers as well as various GCC jurisdictions. She has acted under numerous governing laws, including those of the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Ms. Birt also acts as arbitrator in commercial disputes.
Hafez Virjee is the President and a co-Founder of Delos. Hafez also serves as an independent arbitrator at Virjee Arbitration. He previously acted mainly as counsel. His clients have spanned the range of listed companies, private equity firms, tech start-ups, industrial concerns, State entities and treaty organisations, in disputes across a wide range of sectors and relationships, including shareholder agreements, joint-ventures, agency, M&A, telecommunications, tech, energy, pharmaceutical, construction and defence. Hafez is a solicitor of England & Wales and also qualified in France. He was previously at Dechert in Paris (with a secondment to Dubai in 2015) and prior to that at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London. He co-edits the Delos Guide to Arbitration Places (GAP) and regularly writes and speaks on international arbitration and legal risk management. He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (M.A.), the Université Paris II – Panthéon-Assas (Maîtrise) and the University of California – Berkeley (LL.M.). He is listed among the Future Leaders of Arbitration by Who’s Who Legal.
