NERA Economic Consulting is delighted to support the Paris Arbitration Week 2021 (PAW), which will take place virtually between 20 September and 24 September. In its fifth edition, PAW will bring together the international arbitration community during a week of professional and academic debates with over 35 official events and 1,000 participants from all over the world. The evolution of the current business environment has some effects on the way parties deal with disputes, notably in international arbitration. The current business environment is certainly marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and by changes in the regulatory landscape, such as fiscal regimes.

On Wednesday, 22 September at 16.30 CEST, as part of PAW, NERA’s Head of Transfer Pricing Dr. Emmanuel Llinares, Managing Director Dr. Fabrizio Hernández, and Obeid Partner Ziad Obeid will be joined by moderators Obeid Partner Dr. Zeina Obeid and NERA Associate Director Ralph Meghames for an interactive round-table discussion. The panel will focus on the challenges faced by global arbitration practitioners in light of recent evolutions in the business environment, from the perspectives of counsels and experts. The panelists will address pressing questions such as:

• What types of disputes can be expected in a post-COVID business environment?
• What are the additional complexities for appraisers triggered by the pandemic?
• Are there any changes in the regulatory environment that will affect disputes?

Moderators

Dr. Zeina Obeid is Partner at Obeid & Partners, where she practices in the Litigation & Arbitration department. She has acted as lead counsel in major international arbitration cases across the Middle East and North Africa region. She acts as arbitrator and as an administrative secretary in several domestic and international arbitrations, both ad hoc and under international institutional arbitral rules, including those of the ICC, DIAC, LCIA, CRCICA, BCDR-AAA, and DIFC-LCIA. Dr. Obeid has represented clients in civil and commercial proceedings before the Lebanese courts in inter alia leasing, expropriation, commercial agency, insurance, real estate property disputes, notification and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards, and actions for setting aside arbitral awards. 

Ralph Meghames is an Associate Director in NERA’s Global Transfer Pricing, Intellectual Property, and Valuation Practices based in Paris. Mr. Meghames’s work spans many industries for which he provides economic expertise in the context of advisory services, as well as in disputes, litigation, and international arbitration. He has extensive experience designing and implementing complex systems and models driving the allocation of profits in multinational companies. Mr. Meghames’s work in international arbitration includes shareholders disputes, assessment of damages, pricing analysis, and causation analysis. The expert reports he has contributed to were instrumental in testimonies before the International Chamber of Commerce and the London Court of International Arbitration. 

Speakers

Ziad Obeid is Partner at Obeid & Partners with offices in Beirut, Dubai and Paris. He is a dual-qualified lawyer with a civil engineering background and extensive cross-border experience gained through legal practice in Europe and the Middle East. Experienced both as a counsel and arbitrator in complex international commercial and investment arbitrations, Mr Obeid is identified among the world’s foremost dispute resolution practitioners in GAR’s guide: Thought Leaders – Arbitration 2020.  He regularly acts as counsel, sole arbitrator, chairperson or co-arbitrator in multifaceted international arbitrations conducted in Arabic, French and English brought both ad hoc and under a variety of institutional rules and subject to a wide range of applicable laws from within the MENA region and beyond. Mr. Obeid has notable expertise in international construction claims and arbitrations in respect to large, mega civil engineering, industrial (including nuclear), infrastructure, and projects. 

Dr. Emmanuel Llinares is the Head of NERA’s Global Transfer Pricing Practice based in Paris. He specializes in inter-company pricing, valuation, and intellectual property analyses. Dr. Llinares has also been involved in advising multinational companies on defining and implementing their intra-group pricing policies and has assisted them with design, documentation, and tax audit defense. As a seasoned transfer pricing expert, he has assisted clients in a number of commercial or intellectual property–related litigations as well as international arbitration procedures relating to transfer pricing matters. Dr. Llinares has testified as an expert before national courts and the LCIA in the context of a transfer pricing related disputes.  Dr Llinares is a former member of the EU Joint Transfer Pricing Forum, a body of expert the role of which is to assist the Commission with regards to transfer pricing regulations within the EU.                       

Dr. Fabrizio Hernández is a Managing Director in NERA’s Madrid office who specialises in regulation and pricing in network industries, particularly in energy markets. Dr. Hernández has 25 years of experience in the application of economics to regulatory and commercial issues, often in the context of legal disputes. He has advised clients in more than 50 legal disputes, mainly in relation to the economic consequences of long-term contract clauses for infrastructure, LNG pricing, risk assessment, and financial valuation. He has testified as an expert witness more than 30 times before both national courts and international arbitration tribunals, including ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL, and ad hoc arbitration.