A pandemic arbitration wave? The rise of investor-state arbitrations in the aftermath of the pandemic

Alvin Yeo

Alvin Yeo, Senior Counsel, is the Chairman & Senior Partner of WongPartnership LLP. He was appointed Senior Counsel of the Supreme Court of Singapore in 2000 at the age of 37, the youngest ever to be so appointed. His main areas of practice are litigation and arbitration in banking, corporate/commercial and infrastructure disputes.

Chambers Global describes Alvin as "the most impressive, as an advocate, out of all the Singapore firms" and "simply outstanding as an international counsel". Chambers Asia-Pacific lauds Alvin for providing "leadership on SIAC and ICC proceedings" and is "an excellent strategist as well as a first-rate litigator" who is "deeply impressive and [an] extremely capable individual". The Legal 500 affirms that his "wisdom and powers of persuasion are phenomenal" and that he is "one of the best in a court room".

Alvin is a member of the Court of the SIAC, the ICC Commission and a fellow of the AIADR, the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators and the Singapore Institute of Directors, and a former member of the LCIA Court and the IBA Arbitration Committee. He is also on the panel of arbitrators in the HKIAC, ICDR, KCAB, SCIETAC, and the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators' Panel for Sports in Singapore.

Chié Nakahara

Chié Nakahara is a Partner in the International Arbitration Practice at Nishimura & Asahi.

Chié, being dual-qualified to practice in both New York and Japan, has represented parties in international and domestic arbitral proceedings, ranging from multi-million to multi-billion US dollar disputes. Her experience covers a wide range of institutional rules, including the SIAC, ICC, JCAA, and KCAB, in various seats. She has extensive experience in dealing with disputes covering a wide spectrum of subjects/industries, including construction, joint ventures, post-M&A, government contracts, automobile manufacturing, consumer retail, distributorships, electrical appliance manufacturing, heavy equipment manufacturing, online games, energy, oil, and gas, etc.

Chié has also been appointed as an arbitrator, serving as a member on a panel of arbitrators for the SIAC, KCAB, JCAA, and Daiichi Tokyo Bar Arbitration Center.

Chié holds an undergraduate law degree from Kyoto University (LL.B.) and master’s degree from Stanford Law School (LL.M. in International Economic Law, Business and Policy). Chié has practised in Japan and New York.

Doug Jones AO

Doug Jones AO is an independent international commercial and investor-state arbitrator with over 40 years' prior experience as an international transactional and disputes project lawyer. Doug has an office in Sydney Australia, is an arbitrator member at Arbitration Place in Toronto, and a door tenant at Atkin Chambers London. Doug is also an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court.

He has been an arbitrator in over 140 arbitrations which include construction, infrastructure, energy, commodities, intellectual property, joint venture, corporate, and investor-state disputes spanning over 30 jurisdictions around the world. He has experience as arbitrator under the ICC, LCIA, AAA, ICDR, KCAB, AIAC (formerly KLRCA), CRCICA, SIAC, VIAC, SCC, DIAC, ACICA, IAMA, AMINZ, European Development Fund Arbitration and Conciliation Rules, as well as the ICSID and UNCITRAL Rules, in disputes of values exceeding some billions $US.

Doug has published and presented extensively and holds professorial appointments at Queen Mary College, University of London and Melbourne University Law School. In addition, Doug has held appointments at several international professional associations, including serving as the President of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA), and President of the International Academy of Construction Law. In 2018, Doug chaired the International Council of Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) Congress held in Sydney.

He is regularly favourably ranked in a number of Legal Directories details of which can be seen at https://dougjones.info/recognition/

Judith Levine

Judith Levine is an independent arbitrator with over 20 years’ experience in public international law, investor-state and commercial disputes. She has served as presiding arbitrator, co-panellist, and sole arbitrator in disputes under the ICC, SIAC and CAS rules. She is a Vice President of the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration; a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal and Australia’s National Sports Tribunal.

Now based in Sydney, Judith worked for over a decade at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague where, as Senior Legal Counsel, she administered some of the world’s most complex disputes, including as Registrar in South China Sea and Abyei; assisting tribunals in over 30 investor-state disputes, such as Yukos and Achmea, and in contract-based disputes, including the Bangladesh Accord Arbitrations. She was also on PCA delegations to UN climate negotiations and UNCITRAL Working Groups. Prior to joining the PCA, Judith practised arbitration at White & Case in New York on a mix of investor-state and commercial disputes. She earlier worked with the International Court of Justice, the Australian Attorney-General, and the High Court of Australia. Judith is a member of the IBA Arbitration Committee’s recently formed ESG Subcommittee.

Sarah Grimmer

Sarah Grimmer is Secretary-General of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (“HKIAC”), responsible for its international dispute resolution services and operations out of its offices in Hong Kong, Seoul and Shanghai. She was formerly Senior Legal Counsel at the PCA where she served as registrar in inter-State arbitrations and was appointed tribunal secretary in multiple investor-State arbitrations. Prior to joining the PCA, Sarah served for three years as Assistant Counsel at the ICC International Court of Arbitration in Paris. She was also a member of the international arbitration group at Shearman & Sterling LLP in Paris, prior to which she worked in private practice in Auckland. In 2020 and 2019, Sarah was recognized by Who’s Who Legal as a Global Elite Thought Leader in arbitration. She is currently a member of the ICCA-ASIL Task Force on Damages (2016) and the ICCA Diversity Task Force (2019). She previously served on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Disciplinary Board (2015-2017) and was a member of the IBA Investment Arbitration Subcommittee (2014-2016). Sarah has an LLM from Cambridge University and an LLB/BA (Criminology) from Victoria University of Wellington. She is admitted to practice law in New Zealand.

Toby Landau QC

Toby Landau QC is a barrister, advocate and arbitrator, and a member of the Bars of England & Wales, Singapore, New York, the BVI, Northern Ireland, and registered in the DIFC. He practices from Essex Court Chambers (London) and Essex Court Chambers Duxton (Singapore Group Practice). He is the first QC to have been granted full rights of audience in Singapore.

As Counsel, he has argued hundreds of major international commercial, investor-State and inter-state arbitrations, as well as ground-breaking cases in the highest courts of England, Singapore, Hong Kong, Pakistan and the Caribbean. Since April 2012, he has served on the Panel of Advisers to the Attorney-General of Singapore.

As Arbitrator, he has extensive experience in commercial and investor-State disputes under most of the world’s leading ad hoc and institutional rules. He is a member of various panels, including ICSID.

He is Visiting Professor at Kings College London; SIAC Court Member; Fellow of the CIArb and Chartered Arbitrator; draftsman of the English Arbitration Act 1996, as well as legislation and rules in many other countries.

He holds a first-class law degree and a first class BCL from Oxford University (Eldon Scholar), and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School (Kennedy Scholar).