Derains & Gharavi International

Actualités

January 2017

2nd JOINT TRAC/ISTAC CONFERENCE

Hamid Gharavi interviendra sur le thème suivant : “Should Iran ratify the ICSID Convention?” lors de la seconde conférence commune TRAC/ISTAC qui se tiendra à Téhéran le 5 juillet 2017.

France-Iran: regards croisés sur la pratique du droit

Hamid Gharavi interviendra lors de la conférence “France-Iran, regards croisés sur la pratique du droit”, organisée par la Société de Législation Comparée, à la Maison du Barreau de l’Ordre des Avocats de Paris, le 12 juin 2017 à Paris.

20th Annual IBA International Arbitration Day

Yves Derains interviendra sur le thème de : “The role of the Tribunal in the assessment of the burden of proof, inquisitorial v. adversarial arbitrators” lors de la conférence “20th Annual IBA International Arbitration Day” dédiée à “the burden and standard of proof in international arbitration and related proceedings”, les 30 et 31 mars 2017 à Milan.

Fourth Annual Cambridge Arbitration Day

Yves Derains interviendra sur le thème de “Approaches to arbitration across the ages” lors de la conférence Fourth Annual Cambridge Arbitration Day intitulée “Winds of change: rethinking the future of international arbitration“, qui aura lieu à Cambridge le 18 mars 2017.

Le cabinet Derains & Gharavi accueille une conférence consacrée aux développements relatifs aux arbitrages engagés sur le fondement de traités d’investissement

Le cabinet Derains & Gharavi accueillera la conférence suivante: “Développements relatifs aux arbitrages engagés sur le fondement de traités d’investissement“. Cette conférence, organisée en partenariat avec le Cercle Montesquieu et l’Association of Corporate Counsel se tiendra au cabinet Derains & Gharavi le 28 février 2017.

SCAI Innovation Conference on expedited proceedings and their limits

Melanie van Leeuwen interviendra sur le sujet de “How can traditional formats benefit from new formats“ lors de la conférence organisée par la Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution (SCAI) et dédiée aux “Expedited proceedings and their limits“, le 2 février 2017 à Genève.

Catherine Schroeder et Sophia von Dewall promues counsel

Catherine Schroeder et Sophia von Dewall ont été promues counsel le 1er janvier 2017. Un article paru dans Global Arbitration Review le 9 janvier 2017, intitulé “Derains & Gharavi promotes two to counsel” revient sur ces promotions:

“Derains & Gharavi International has promoted two former senior associates to counsel in its Paris office, Sophia von Dewall and Catherine Schroeder.

Dutch national, von Dewall joined the firm in 2012 after more than seven years at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, where she started out practising corporate law before moving to dispute resolution and worked in the firm’s New York, London and Amsterdam offices. She is qualified in both Paris and Amsterdam.

Since joining Derains & Gharavi, von Dewall’s most notable work includes acting alongside founding partner Hamid Gharavi to secure ICSID wins for Albania in cases brought by Greek fuel distributor Mamidoil and scratch card investors Burimi and Eagle Games.

With Melanie van Leeuwen, she has also successfully represented a leading international engineering procurement construction contractor in an ICC arbitration concerning a power plant and a major Dutch bank in a post-M&A dispute under the rule of Belgian arbitration institution CEPANI. She has also sat as an arbitrator in commercial cases.

During an arbitration concerning the production of TV series, she appeared before Dutch arbitrator Albert Jan van den Berg of Hanotiau & van den Berg in Brussels. He describes von Dewall as “smart, focused and fast [with] a great future.”

Dechert’s Paris-based co-head of international arbitration Eduardo Silva Romero says: “I have seen Sophia in action, and noticed her excellent advocacy skills both for oral pleading and witness examination. She clearly deserves her promotion, and will no doubt be a name to follow in the coming years”.

Schroeder is a dual French-US national who has been at Derains & Gharavi since its inception as Lazareff Derains & Gharavi in 2008, having previously worked at a boutique run by founding partner Yves Derains. She has also worked as an intern at Freshfields and Shearman & Sterling.

Alongside Derains, she has successfully represented a major French civil aviation company as well as Greek and Czech companies in commercial arbitrations under ICC rules.

She also handled cases in the petrochemical, construction, aeronautic, electronic and energy sectors before arbitral tribunals and the French courts, acted as tribunal secretary in investment and commercial cases and sat as an arbitrator in commercial cases.

Arbitrator Bernard Hanotiau, who practises alongside van den Berg at Hanotiau & van den Berg, says “I have had the opportunity to work with Catherine in various cases in which she was acting as secretary of the arbitral tribunal. She is a very intelligent, rigorous and hardworking lawyer. I am very happy that she has been promoted to counsel in this very prestigious arbitration boutique.”

ICC International Court of Arbitration chair Alexis Mourre calls her “a promising young arbitrator and an excellent counsel [who] will greatly contribute to the growth of Derains & Gharavi.”

Hamid Gharavi comments: “These well-deserved promotions occur in the context of the firm’s continued strong growth and is a reflection of the diversity of our practice. At present, we have around 100 arbitrations pending, including a dozen of investment arbitrations as counsel. We are very pleased to be able to staff those cases with our own home-grown talent“.