Webinar with Prof. Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Niuscha Bassiri, Prof. Gary Born, Anneliese Day QC, Prof. Maxi Scherer, Hafez Virjee, in conjunction with Wolters Kluwer (2 November 2020).

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

Prof. Mohamed Abdel Wahab is the Chair of the Private International law Department and Professor of International Arbitration at Cairo University. He is also: Vice President of the ICC International Court of Arbitration; Member of the ICCA Governing Board; Vice- Chair, IBA Arab Regional Forum; Member of the CRCICA Advisory Committee; Member of the Advisory Board, Mauritius International Arbitration Centre (MIAC); Member of the Board of Trustees of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb); Vice Chair, Academic Forum for Investor-State Dispute Settlement; Court Member of the CIMAC; Dean and Member of the Advisory Council of the Africa Arbitration Academy; and Member of the Governing Board of the International Council on Online Dispute Resolution (ICODR).

Niuscha Bassiri is a partner at Hanotiau & van den Berg in Brussels. She has a solid track-record as counsel and arbitrator (sole, presiding and party-appointed arbitrator) in numerous international arbitrations under the major arbitral institutions and arbitration rules (CEPANI, DIS, ICC, LCIA, NAI, UNCITRAL, VIAC) and governed by various procedural and substantive laws. The arbitrations in which she has been involved concern State-entities and private entities alike and span a multitude of sectors, such as banking, construction, energy, finance, infrastructure, insurance, luxury, maritime equipment, mining, nuclear power plants, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, satellites, solar power plants, telecommunication, transportation and wind parks and relate to diverse legal issues, such as investment, distributorship, joint ventures, licensing, patents, post-M&A, sales of goods and shareholdings. Her training as a District Court and Court of Appeal judge in Germany gives Niuscha Bassiri relevant insight to judicial approach.

Gary Born is the Chair of the International Arbitration Practice Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. He is widely regarded as the world’s preeminent authority on international commercial arbitration and international litigation. He has been ranked for the past 20 years as one of the world’s leading international arbitration practitioners and the leading arbitration practitioner in London. He also serves as President of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Court of Arbitration. Mr. Born has served as counsel in more than 675 international arbitrations, including several of the largest arbitrations in ICC and ad hoc history, and has sat as arbitrator in more than 250 institutional and ad hoc arbitrations. Mr. Born has represented European, US, Asian and other companies in arbitrations under all leading institutional rules (ICC, LCIA, AAA, Vienna, Stockholm, ICSID) and in ad hoc arbitrations in all leading international seats (London, Paris, Geneva/Zurich, Vienna, Stockholm, New York, Washington, Singapore). He has particular experience in public international law and state-related disputes, oil and gas, joint venture, investor-state, M&A, investment banking and other financial services, project finance, energy, intellectual property and insurance disputes.

Anneliese Day QC is a “leading lawyer of her generation” and a “standout genius” who is frequently instructed in high-value and complex cases both nationally and internationally.  She is ranked both as a Leading Silk in six practice areas in the legal directories (commercial litigation, international arbitration, professional negligence, energy, construction and insurance/reinsurance) and as an Arbitrator. She was recently described as “an absolute Rockstar at the top of her game”, who operates at the highest level in her areas of expertise dealing with courts and tribunals as both Lead Counsel and Arbitrator not only in the UK but also in Asia Pacific, the Middle East and the Caribbean (including the DIFC and the SICC). She also regularly appears at appellate level.  She is known for being a “charming, intelligent and ruthlessly brilliant advocate”, “stupendously talented” and a “good leader for the 21st century”. In 2020, Anneliese was named ‘International Arbitration Silk of the Year’ at the Chambers Bar Awards where she was also shortlisted as ‘Professional Negligence Silk of the Year’. She has previously been named ‘Construction and Energy Silk of the Year’ three times, ‘Barrister of the Year’ in 2014 by The Lawyer and one of the 500 most influential people in the UK by Debretts. She is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

Professor Maxi Scherer is Special Counsel at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and regularly sits as arbitrator. She also holds the Chair for International Arbitration, Dispute Resolution and Energy Law at Queen Mary, University of London, and is Queen Mary’s Director of the Centre for Commercial Law Studies in Paris and of the LLM in Paris programme. Prof. Scherer further serves on the Delos Board of Advisors and acts as the General Editor of the Kluwer Journal of International Arbitration. She was previously Global Professor of Law at NYU Law School, Visiting Professor at SciencesPo Law School Paris and Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown Centre of Transnational Legal Studies.

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.