Events

Past Event

Q&A with Emmanuel Gaillard & Yas Banifatemi

February 2, 2017
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
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Location: Columbia Law School, Jerome Greene Hall, Room 107

CCSI and the Columbia International Arbitration Association (CIAA) co-hosted a Q&A withEmmanuel Gaillard and Yas Banifatemi, two of the leading authorities on international commercial and investment arbitration. Emmanuel Gaillard is a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School and Professor of Law at Sciences Po Law School in Paris, as well as the founder and head of Shearman & Sterling’s Public International Law Practice. Yas Banifatemi is a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School and Lecturer at University of Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I), as well as the head of Shearman & Sterling’s International Law Practice. Please see their biographies below.

Biographies

Emmanuel Gailllard

Emmanuel Gaillard is universally regarded as a leading authority and a star practitioner in the fields of both commercial and investment treaty arbitration.

Professor of Law at Sciences Po Paris, currently acting as a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, he has written extensively on all aspects of arbitration law, in French and in English. Co-author of a leading treatise in the field (Fouchard Gaillard Goldman On International Commercial Arbitration), he also authored the first published essay on the legal theory of international arbitration.

He has been appointed by France on the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators.  He regularly acts as expert for the OECD, UNCTAD, and UNCITRAL. In 2010, he was appointed as expert by UNCITRAL for the drafting of the forthcoming UNCITRAL Secretariat Guide on the New York Convention. He chairs the International Arbitration Institute (IAI) and was the first President and one of the co-founders of the International Academy for Arbitration Law.

He founded and heads Shearman & Sterling’s 100-lawyers International Arbitration practice. He has advised and represented companies, States and State-owned entities in hundreds of international arbitrations. He also acts as arbitrator and expert witness. Over the course of his career, he has acted on many of the largest international disputes submitted to arbitration. In addition to the USD 50 billion award secured for the majority shareholders of the former Yukos Oil Company, he acted on the ICC arbitration brought by The Dow Chemical Company against Petrochemical Industries Company of Kuwait, which led to a USD 2.47 billion award in favor of Dow, previously distinguished as the largest arbitral award rendered in the history of international arbitration.

Yas Banifatemi

Yas Banifatemi has been praised as a “prominent figure in international arbitration” in Chambers Global.  She appeared in the “45 Under 45” feature of American Lawyer’s January 2011 issue, a ranking of “The Best and the Brightest” female lawyers under 45, and in the “45 Under 45” feature of Global Arbitration Review’s August 2011 issue, a global ranking of the leading figures of the international arbitration bar under 45.

She is a Lecturer at University of Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) and a Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. She also conducts a workshop on written skills in international arbitration at Sciences Po Law School. She researches in the areas of public international law and international arbitration, and has authored numerous publications in these fields.

She leads Shearman & Sterling’s Public International Law Practice. She advises and represents States, State-owned entities and companies on both public international law and international arbitration issues. She has acted as counsel and arbitrator in arbitration cases under the ICSID, UNCITRAL, ICC, LCIA, SCC, CRCICA and Swiss Arbitration Rules, with particular focus on investment protection, oil & gas and general commercial matters.

In 2015, she was appointed Vice President of the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) International Court of Arbitration and Member of the LCIA (London Court of International Arbitration) Court.