In the Holiday Special Episode (and the last TagTime episode of the year), hosts Dr Kabir Duggal & Amanda Lee welcomed Saadia Bhatty, Jonathan Lim, Mercy Okiro and Tafadzwa Pasipanodya, alongside Delos’ President Hafez Virjee (see their bios below). The recording is available here.

ABOUT OUR SPEAKERS

Saadia Bhatty is an attorney admitted to the New York bar and an Avocat au Barreau de Paris. She is counsel in the International Dispute Resolution (IDR) team of Gide’s London office and advises and represents States and private entities on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious international dispute resolution law matters. Saadia has acted as counsel in investment and commercial arbitration proceedings conducted under the rules of various institutions (including those of the ICC, ICSID, LCIA, SCC, the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA), HKIAC, VIAC and CAS) as well as ad hoc arbitrations (UNCITRAL), dealing with the laws of both civil and common-law jurisdictions. Saadia has specific experience in the energy, oil & gas and construction sectors, especially in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Prior to working for Gide in London, she worked for Gide in Paris and global law firms’ international arbitration and public international law practices in London and New York. Saadia sits on the Board and is part of the Executive Committee of a number of professional organisations, including the European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (EFILA), the Pakistan Centre for Law and Society (PCLS), ArbitralWomen, and she is the President of the Harvard Women in Defense, Diplomacy and Development (Harvard W3D London Chapter).

Jonathan Lim is a triple-qualified English solicitor, Singapore advocate and New York lawyer with a focus on complex international disputes. He has particular experience with disputes in the energy, financial services, technology and telecommunications sectors, and has represented clients in ad hoc and institutional arbitrations (including under the HKIAC, ICC, LCIA, SIAC and UNCITRAL Rules) in common law and civil law jurisdictions in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Mr. Lim has also worked on WTO dispute settlement matters involving claims under multiple WTO agreements (including GATT, GATS, TRIPS, TBT and SCM) and is part of the team representing the government of Somalia in its WTO accession process. In addition to his practice as counsel, Mr. Lim has a developing practice as arbitrator and has received SIAC and DIS appointments as sole and party-appointed arbitrator in proceedings seated in Europe and Asia, including bilingual English-Chinese arbitrations and arbitrations governed by the CISG. He has also advised international organizations and governments in Africa and Asia on public international law issues (including state and international organization immunities, treaty accession, international trade law, and law of the sea) and assisted with the drafting of legislation in Fiji, Iraq, Papua New Guinea, Somalia and Tonga.

Mercy Okiro is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, trained Arbitrator, Accredited Mediator and Construction Adjudicator. She is an Accredited Tutor and Assessor of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (London). Mercy holds a Master of Arts degree in International Studies from the University of Nairobi and is currently studying for her Master of Laws degree. Mercy is on the panel of Arbitrators for the Kigali International Arbitration Centre, the Tanzania Institute of Arbitrators and the COVID-19 ADR Initiative (CADRI) Panel of Neutrals. She sits on the Council of the Association of Young Arbitrators and is an ICC Young Arbitrators Forum Representative for Africa, Middle East and Turkey. She is the Joint Secretary of the Executive Committee of the Africa Asia Mediation Association and a Fellow of the World Mediation Organization. She sits on two Kenya Private Sector Alliance Sector Boards, the National Technical Committees of the Kenya Bureau of Standards and Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture Working Groups amongst other boards. She was the Winner of the East Africa International Arbitration Conference prize award 2019 for “The Young African Arbitration Practitioner of the year 2019” and was listed as one of Africa’s Most Promising Young Arbitrators 2020 by AYA. She publishes articles on sports law, gender empowerment, mediation and arbitration regularly and has spoken in numerous conferences regionally and internationally.

Tafadzwa Pasipanodya is a partner in Foley Hoag LLP’s international litigation and arbitration department and chair of its Africa practice. She has represented sovereign States from all over the world before international courts and arbitral tribunals in State-to-State and Investor-State disputes concerning mining, the environment, human rights, infrastructure, the law of the sea, and territorial boundaries. She also represents foreign states in U.S. federal court proceedings. Tafadzwa helped her clients achieve victory in several international disputes over the past year. She is a member of the team that helped The Gambia secure a historic provisional measures order from the ICJ instructing Myanmar to stop its genocide of the Rohingya people. She also co-led the team that helped Mauritius defeat an ICSID arbitration claim brought by UK investors concerning the Le Morne UNESCO World Heritage Site commemorating resistance against slavery. In addition, Tafadzwa helped Uruguay defeat a $4 billion claim concerning the denial of an iron mining permit. Tafadzwa is ranked by Latinvex as one of the top 100 female lawyers in the world working on Latin American matters and is recognized for her dispute resolution expertise in Who’s Who Legal: Arbitration and Legal 500: USA and Latin America.

Hafez Virjee is the President and a co-Founder of Delos. Hafez also serves as an independent arbitrator at Virjee Arbitration. He previously acted mainly as counsel. His clients have spanned the range of listed companies, private equity firms, tech start-ups, industrial concerns, State entities and treaty organisations, in disputes across a wide range of sectors and relationships, including shareholder agreements, joint-ventures, agency, M&A, telecommunications, tech, energy, pharmaceutical, construction and defence. Hafez is a solicitor of England & Wales and also qualified in France. He was previously at Dechert in Paris (with a secondment to Dubai in 2015) and prior to that at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London. He co-edits the Delos Guide to Arbitration Places (GAP) and regularly writes and speaks on international arbitration and legal risk management. He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge (M.A.), the Université Paris II – Panthéon-Assas (Maîtrise) and the University of California – Berkeley (LL.M.). He is listed among the Future Leaders of Arbitration by Who’s Who Legal. 

Find out more about the TagTime series here, and browse past episodes here.