The ROAP EMEA Finals brought to a close our advanced remote oral advocacy and cross-examination courses, by featuring the most persuasive and skilled participants on each course.

The outcome of the finals was determined by a panel of world-class arbitrators consisting of Prof Maxi Scherer (President), Prof Stefan Kröll and Prof Bernard Rix.

The winners were, Zofia Porada (Surdek Arbitration, Warsaw) and Lucy Rothwell (Mazars, London) for the cross-examination course; Sarah Alaiwat (CRS, Dubai), and Nusaybah Muti (Three Crowns, London) for the oral submissions course, and Bianca Vasilache ( A&O Shearman, London) as the best advocate.

The other finalists were Bradley Price (Al Tamimi, Manama) and expert Maren Burtoft (Accuracy, Frankfurt) for the cross-examination course, and Eva Valter (GLS Advisory, Dubai) for the oral submissions course.

You will find short bios of the tribunal members below.

TRIBUNAL FOR ROAP EMEA 2024 FINALS

Prof Maxi Scherer has over 20 years of experience in international arbitration in both civil and common law systems. She is admitted to the bar in Paris (France) and as a solicitor in England and Wales. Maxi has represented clients and served as arbitrator or legal expert in more than 140 commercial and investor-State arbitrations. Her arbitrations regularly involve States, concern multi-billion amounts in dispute and are conducted in English, French and German. Regularly ranked by Who’s Who Legal, The Legal 500 etc. as a leading arbitration practitioner, she has been identified amongst the top 20 “Global Elite Thought Leaders” and described by peers as “one of the greatest and most complete arbitrators,” and “one of the very best in both commercial and investment arbitration proceedings.” She has received the 2023 GAR Award for “Best Prepared Arbitrator”. Maxi is a Vice-President of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), Co-Chair of the IBA Subcommittee on Rules and Guidelines and holds many other public appointments and commissions of trust, including being a member of the panel of arbitrators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the Governing Board of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA). Maxi is a tenured Professor of Law at Queen Mary, University of London, where she holds the Chair for International Arbitration, Dispute Resolution and Energy Law. She is the General Editor of the Kluwer Journal of International Arbitration and publishes extensively in the field. In 2018, Maxi received the GAR Award for Best Speech or Lecture for her keynote on artificial intelligence and the transformation of decision-making.

Prof Stefan Kröll is an internationally operating arbitrator with experience in more than 85 arbitrations in all areas of national and international business law including the involvement of state parties. In the relevant rankings, he is regularly named as one of the leading German experts in international arbitration. Since January 2022 he has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS). He combines his practice as an arbitrator with extensive academic activities as Professor for International Dispute Resolution at Bucerius Law School and Director of its Center for International Dispute Resolution. In addition, I regularly give lectures and talks at other leading institutions in Germany and abroad and am a Visiting Professor at the School of International Arbitration, University of London. Since 2012 he has been a Director of the Willem C. Vis Arbitration Moot in Vienna, the leading student competition in the fields of international commercial law and arbitration with more than 350 participating Universities. My publications include several internationally renowned monographs, treatises and commentaries, as well as a considerable number of articles in international journals. He is one of Germany’s national correspondents at UNCITRAL and has been retained by UNCITRAL as one of three experts to prepare the DIGEST on the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration.

Prof Bernard Rix retired in 2013 as a Lord Justice of Appeal with 20 years’ experience in the Commercial Court and the Court of Appeal. Since 2013 he has accepted appointments as an arbitrator and mediator in a wide variety of settings, including oil and gas, shipping, insurance, sale of goods, and share purchase transactions. He has acted as an expert witness, mock arbitrator and special master in the US federal courts. He has experience of arbitrations under the rules of, amongst others, the LCIA, ICC, SIAC, HKIAC, JCAA and LMAA as well as ad-hoc. Sir Bernard has conducted virtual arbitration hearings including taking witness and expert evidence remotely. He is an International Judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court and a member of the Cayman Islands Court of Appeal. He is also Professor of International Commercial Law at The Centre of Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary, University of London. As a barrister, Sir Bernard practised in commercial chambers at 3 Essex Court (now Twenty Essex). He specialised in international commercial and arbitral disputes (as both barrister and arbitrator) and also appeared in the courts of Singapore and Hong Kong. He was Chairman of the Commercial Bar Association in 1992–1993. In 1993 Sir Bernard was appointed to the High Court and sat predominantly in the Commercial Court, of which he was judge in charge from 1998 to 1999. In that period, he was responsible for introducing to the Commercial Court the Woolf Reforms to civil procedure law (the Civil Procedure Rules) and redrafting the Commercial Court’s Guide and Practice Directions. In 2000 Sir Bernard was appointed to the Court of Appeal where he delivered a wide range of judgments on arbitration, aviation, banking, insurance and reinsurance, private and public international law, oil and gas, sale of goods and shipping disputes. In 2024, Sir Bernard received ‘Senior Arbitrator of the Year’ at the Legal 500 UK Bar Awards.

FINALISTS

Forthcoming