Thirty Ninth ITF Public Conference: Energy Disputes in ISDS

Prof. Yarik Kryvoi is the Director of the Investment Treaty Forum and an Of Counsel at Keidan Harrison. He holds law degrees from UCL, Harvard, and other universities and was admitted to practice in the State of New York. Before moving to academia, he practiced international investment law with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London, Morgan Lewis & Bockius in Washington, DC and Baker & McKenzie in Saint Petersburg.

Yarik is the course leader of the Institute's online course "International Investment Law and Dispute Resolution, available here.

Prof. Nick Butler is Visiting Professor and founding chair of the Policy institute at King's College, London. He was formerly Group Vice President for Strategy and Policy at BP and subsequently senior policy adviser to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He writes on energy policy for Project Syndicate, the Financial Times and is a regular contributor for the BBC.

Vivek Kapoor is a barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, London. Vivek is an experienced advocate and arbitrator specialising in complex commercial disputes and investor-state disputes. He has particular expertise in multi-jurisdictional disputes arising from energy and natural resources, infrastructure and construction, banking and financial services, and technology sectors.

Vivek has a wide-ranging practice in the field of international arbitration. He has acted in arbitrations under a wide variety of international arbitration rules including ICSID, ICC, LCIA, SIAC, UNCITRAL, and ad-hoc arrangements. He has experience of arbitration applications before various international courts, including challenges to awards and enforcement under the New York Convention. He also regularly acts as arbitrator in ad-hoc and institutional arbitrations.

Smaranda Miron Smaranda Miron is a senior energy lawyer with the Energy Community Secretariat, an international organisation based in Vienna. She handles energy disputes (cases against the Contracting Parties of the Energy Community), supports the Energy Community Secretariat’s Dispute Resolution and Negotiation Centre and works, together with the competent national authorities, towards a full implementation of the Energy Community acquis.

Before joining the Energy Community Secretariat, Smaranda worked as an associate in the International Arbitration Group of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and as a public procurement case-handler with the European Commission.

Dr. Serhat Eskiyörük is an academic at ATU and a Research Fellow at the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources. Dr. Eskiyörük did his Master’s in Law and Ph.D. at the University of London (IALS) on International Dispute Revolution. He has been acted as an Arbitrator, Counsel, and Legal Expert in ICSID, ISTAC, LCIA, ICC, TOBB, Czech Arbitration Court, and ICA arbitrations. Dr. Eskiyörük was a Founding President of the TBB (Union of Turkish Bars) Arbitration Center, TBMM Legislation Commissioner of the Istanbul Arbitration Center (ISTAC) Act, and Delegate of ICSID Arbitration Rules Reform. He is also a member of the Working Group of the ICC National Committee (Turkey) on Arbitration.

Matthew Weiniger is Linklaters’ Global Chair of International Arbitration. He is a specialist in international arbitration and public international law. He also advises on non-contentious matters involving the protection of foreign investments. For many years much of his practice has involved investment treaty arbitrations.

Matthew lectures on matters connected to arbitration and public international law. He is co-author, together with Professor Campbell McLachlan QC and Laurence Shore, of the world’s leading investment arbitration text - International Investment Arbitration: Substantive Principles published by Oxford University Press (second edition 2017). Matthew is recommended for public international law, international arbitration and project/energy disputes in Legal 500, Chambers UK, Chambers Global and other legal expert directories.

Nicolas Angelet is Professor of public international law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, advocate at the Brussels Bar and Associate Tenant of Doughty Street Chambers, London. Member of the iCSID Panel of Arbitrators (appointed by Burundi) and of Conciliators (appointed by Belgium).

Nicolas Angelet sits as president and member of ICSID arbitral tribunals and annulment committees and is the author of numerous publications in international investment law and dispute resolution and in public international law generally.

Lucia Bizikova is a Solicitor qualified in England & Wales. She practices international arbitration at DLA Piper in London, and her experience includes acting on behalf of clients in both, investor-State and commercial arbitration cases. Lucia holds Master Degrees in Law from the University of Cambridge and Sciences Po Ecole de Droit.

She is a former member of the Executive Committee of London VYAP, a PILAGG Fellow. She is a published author of several articles and a co-editor of English and French casebooks - “Global Private International Law: Adjudication without Frontiers” and “Le Tournant Global en Droit International Privé: Jurisprudence sans Forntières”.

Alejandro Carballo Leyda is the General Counsel of the International Energy Charter and Head of its Conflict Resolution Centre, which provides good offices and mediation support to investors and governments. From December 2020 to mid-September 2021, he was also Acting Deputy Secretary-General of the International Energy Charter. Among other things, he has coordinated the Guide on Investment Mediation, the first training for investment mediators (together with ICSID and CEDR) and the Model Instrument on Management of Investment Disputes.

Alejandro also teaches foreign investment law at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and was awarded the 2021 Energy Charter Award for his coordination of the negotiations to modernise the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). He also participated in the working groups of UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (2010 ed.) and the Hague Principles on Choice of Law for International Contracts.

Jakob Ragnwaldh is a partner at Mannheimer Swartling focusing on international arbitration and investor-state disputes, based in Singapore. He has represented clients in well over 100 arbitrations, including investment treaty arbitrations. He regularly advises clients on matters of investment protection and is involved in multiple challenge and enforcement proceedings arising out of investment awards. Jakob Ragnwaldh has acted as an arbitrator under the Rules of the SCC, ICC, HKIAC, FAI, KCAB and the Swiss Rules. In March 2020, he was appointed by the Swedish government to serve on the ICSID panel of arbitrators.He has served as Vice-Chair of the Board of the SCC Arbitration Institute and is a former Chairperson of the Executive Board of the European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (EFILA). He also chaired the SCC Rules Revision Committee resulting in the 2017 SCC Rules.

Jakob Ragnwaldh is co-editor of International Arbitration in Sweden – a Practitioner’s Guide and co-author of the Guide to the SCC Arbitration Rules. He has taught investment treaty arbitration at Stockholm University.

Jennifer Younan, partner in Shearman & Sterling’s International Arbitration and Public International Law practices, advises and represents companies, Stateowned entities and States in investment treaty and commercial arbitrations conducted under most major arbitration rules, with a focus on investment and energy disputes in emerging markets. She has notably participated in several of the largest international disputes submitted to arbitration. Her experience covers a wide range of industry sectors and types of disputes, including energy, mining and metals, banking and finance, infrastructure/transportation and construction, as well disputes arising from business combination transactions and general commercial matters.

Hamed El-Kady is leading UNCTAD's work on international investment agreements (IIAs) and investor-State disputes (ISDS). He provides policy advice to Governments on issues related to investment policies for sustainable development. He was instrumental in the development and adoption of Guiding Principles on Investment Policymaking for a number of regional organizations. He oversaw the implementation of over 40 international, regional and national conferences on investment issues worldwide. He is also a core member of UNCTAD’s team on the World Investment Report (WIR) and the World Investment Forum (WIF). He has extensive publications on investment and related economic and legal issues. He is a frequent panelist in international conferences on investment policies.

Alison Macdonald KC is a barrister at Essex Court Chambers in London. She was elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1999, called to the Bar in 2000, and appointed Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) in 2017. In the field of arbitration, she has two decades of experience advising and representing States, individuals and corporations, in particular in investment arbitrations and related matters, including arbitration-related applications in the English courts. This includes acting for the former Yukos majority shareholders in the enforcement of their $50bn arbitral award. In the field of public international law, she regularly appears before the major international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and ad hoc arbitral tribunals. Alison has a particular interest in environmental and climate change issues as they relate to arbitration and international law. She currently represents a group of Portuguese children and young people in their claim against 33 States in the European Court of Human Rights, for the human rights effects of climate change.

Mark Kantor is a retired partner of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy (now Milbank LLC), an international arbitrator in investment and commercial disputes, Adjunct Professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Transnational Dispute Management. He was a member of the World Bank Group Sanctions Board (term ended Fall 2021). He is a former member of the American Arbitration Association Board of Directors and the Council of the American Arbitration Association, and former Chair of the DC Bar International Investment Committee and the DC Bar International Dispute Resolution Committee. He has authored numerous works, including Reports of Overseas Private Investment Corporation Determinations (eds. Mark Kantor, Michael D. Nolan and Karl P. Sauvant), Valuation for Arbitration: Compensation Standards, Valuation Methods and Expert Evidence (OGEMID Best Book 2008) and “A Code of Conduct for Party-Appointed Experts in International Arbitration – Can One be Found?” 26 Arbitration International 323 (2010).

Christophe Bondy is a partner at Steptoe & Johnson in London. He has more than 20 years of experience as an investment treaty counsel, and his work includes taking a leading role in some of the highest profile cases yet decided in investment treaty arbitration. Christophe currently is lead counsel in multiple investment treaty arbitrations on behalf of both claimant investors and respondent States, including legacy claims under NAFTA Chapter Eleven. In addition to his busy counsel practice, Christophe sits as an arbitrator in investment treaty

Christophe also has deep experience as counsel in the negotiation of international trade and investment agreements. He was senior counsel to Canada in the negotiation of the Canada – European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), with particular emphasis on services and investment chapters. He has negotiated treaties with countries around the world and advised States on both strategic and compliance issues, up to the highest levels of government, and provides capacity building and advisory services to States around the world.