fbpx

Fall 2023 Centennial Symposium: International Arbitration, Finance, and Investment

The Crossroads of International Arbitration, Finance, and Investment
Presented by: Currents: Journal of International Economic Law & South Texas College of Law Houston

This Symposium will highlight the intersection of international arbitration, finance, and investment. Featuring panels of industry leaders where attendees can learn and participate in discussions with multidisciplinary insights. We hope to illuminate the evolving landscape where legal, financial, and investment realms converge, fostering a deeper understanding of their synergies and implications.
The event provided is for 7 hours and 30 minutes of CLE hours.

Date of event: Friday, October 20th, 2023, 9:00am-5:30pm
Location: South Texas College of Law Houston campus, Emilie Slohm Hall
Time: 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.
CLE Hours: 7.5hrs
Lunch: Provided by Treebeards
Cocktail Hour: 5:30 p.m.

LIST OF TOPICS INCLUDE:

· Drafting Arbitration Agreements
· Singapore Convention on Mediation
· Background on Arbitration on NAFTA
· Specialized Arbitration Forums (FINRA & ICSID)
· Investment Arbitration and Reginal Investment
· and more!

*Speakers, topics, and schedule may be subject to change

 

REGISTRATION FEES:

General Admission: $175

(Group Rate for 3 or more save 25%)

Downtown Houston Location and Parking Information

Registration is now closed

TENTATIVE SCHEDULE & LEARNING OBJECTIVES

SPEAKER BIOS

Hal Abramson

Professor Hal Abramson, Touro Law Center, has been deeply involved in the development and practice of domestic and international dispute resolution for more than twenty-five years. He contributes as a teacher, trainer, author, and participant on professional committees and serves actively as a mediator and facilitator. He also has taught or trained on dispute resolution in twenty-one countries on six continents. He is an award-winning author with three of his numerous publications receiving awards from the CPR International Institute for Conflict Resolution. In 2020, he was the sole recipient of Touro University’s Presidential Award for Scholarship.

While at Touro, he visited full-time at Cardozo Law School in NYC and UNLV Law School in Las Vegas. He also visited for a year as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy where he assisted in building their negotiation program, including teaching negotiations and training negotiation teachers.

Professor Abramson has been selected for the International Who’s Who of Commercial Mediation since its inaugural year and served as the first Scholar-in-Residence for the International Academy of Mediators.  He chaired the committee that drafted the rules for the ABA Mediation Representation Competition, served on the inaugural committee that launched the ICC Mediation Competition in Paris, and Chaired the Task Force for IMI that drafted the first ever standards for certifying cross-cultural mediators. He also was involved with drafting the new Singapore Mediation Convention. He served as an expert advisor to UNCITRAL when Working Group II drafted the Convention, participated in the drafting sessions, and co-chaired the first symposium on the Convention including editing a book that included chapters from delegates that helped draft the Convention. For his contributions to the field of dispute resolution, Professor Abramson received the 2013 Peace Builder Award from the NYS Dispute Resolution Association.

Stacey Barnes

Mr. Barnes is a Senior Attorney in Litigation and Business Law at Kearney, McWilliams & Davis, PLLC. He is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Debrecen, Hungary and a former Adjunct Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law, teaching International Commercial Arbitration and Arbitration Law. Mr. Barnes also coaches domestic, international, and securities arbitration teams.

As a litigation attorney, his practice focuses in the areas of international business law, general business representation, corporate law, commercial litigation, and intellectual property law. He has experience with cases ranging from simple collection matters to patent and trademark infringement cases, international trade secret litigation, and breach of commercial contract cases. As a transactional attorney, Mr. Barnes counsels clients regarding a variety of business transactions, from basic entity formation to complex cross-border acquisitions or licensing agreements. Mr. Barnes has advised business clients on legal matters involving Canada, Mexico, St. Lucia, Italy, Germany, Britain, Ireland, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Malta, Russia, Central African Republic, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea and the United States. He has worked for business law firms in Houston, Texas, and Milan, Italy.

As an arbitrator, Mr. Barnes is available for appointment as arbitrator for commercial, international, securities and intellectual property cases. Member of the AAA Commercial, ICDR, ICC, European Court of Arbitration, FINRA, and City of Houston arbitration rosters, Mr. Barnes has a diverse background and extensive expertise. He has served as single arbitrator, wing arbitrator, and chair of commercial arbitration panels on subjects including international commercial loan securitization, international shipping and logistics employee leasing, business acquisitions, post-acquisition price adjustments, commercial loan brokerage agreements, collateralized debt obligations, mutual fund administration, distributorship agreements, software service agreements, corporate governance, professional services fee disputes, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, construction services, securities fraud, branch office contracts, and executive compensation cases. He has also served as chairman of arbitration panels for claims of large international financial institutions involving unfair competition, tortious interference with contract, and violation of non-competition covenants as well as international arbitration panels for claims involving securities options contracts and commercial loan securitization.

Richard W. Berry is Executive Vice President and Director, FINRA Dispute Resolution Services.

Prior to serving in this capacity, Mr. Berry was Senior Vice President, Dispute Resolution. In that role, he oversaw the four regional offices—New York, Boca Raton, Chicago and Los Angeles—and the New York Case Administration unit.

Mr. Berry joined FINRA, then NASD, in 1995 as head of Dispute Resolution’s Los Angeles satellite office. In 2001, he was named Director of Case Administration in the New York City office.  Mr. Berry serves as Executive Champion of the FINRA Communication Coaches program, which provides professional communication skills coaching to FINRA staff who engage in public speaking.   Mr. Berry earned his Certified Regulatory and Compliance Professional™ designation through the FINRA Institute.

Prior to joining FINRA, he taught American law for one year in Budapest. Mr. Berry began his career practicing law in San Francisco. He is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara and UC College of the Law, San Francisco (formerly known as UC Hastings College of the Law). Mr. Berry is a member of the California Bar.

Doak Bishop specializes in international arbitration, with a focus on Latin America. A partner at King & Spalding – International Arbitration practice, Doak represents companies in arbitration and litigation of disputes in the oil and gas, energy, construction, environmental and foreign investment sectors.

With extensive experience in litigation and international arbitration, Doak has served both as an arbitrator and counsel. He represents clients in disputes concerning oil and gas and energy, foreign investment, construction and environmental matters.

Doak has served as Chairman of the Institute of Transnational Arbitration and as a Director of the American Arbitration Association (AAA). He is also a member of the U.S. delegation to the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) Advisory Committee on Private Commercial Disputes.

As an arbitrator, Doak has led or participated in more than 70 arbitrations under the auspices of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), AAA, the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission (IACAC) and the Center for Public Resources (CPR), as well as in ad hoc arbitrations.

A frequent author and speaker, Doak is listed by Chambers USA in Tier 1 as a top seven U.S. arbitration counsel, and by Chambers Global in Tier 1 of the top 11 international arbitration counsel globally. He is also listed as a top 20 arbitration specialist by Cross-Border Quarterly, published in the UK.

Rafael has experience in domestic and international litigation and arbitration and provides clients with both early identification and mitigation of business risks and a plan of action should a dispute occur.  He also represents his clients in transactions and corporate matters, enjoying a diverse and mixed practice.  With over 20 years of experience Rafael has practiced as counsel in arbitrations, arbitrator, editor of arbitration publications, among other roles.  Rafael is a fellow of the Texas Bar Foundation and devotes time to pro bono efforts in dispute resolution and peace making.

Zachary Calo

Zachary R. Calo is Professor of Law and Founding Professor at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar, where he has been a member of the faculty since 2015.  He is also an affiliated Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Visiting Professor at The Open University (UK), Central Asia Research Fellow and Visiting Professor at Tashkent State University of Law (Uzbekistan), Adjunct Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, and Lecturer at the Qatar Olympic Academy.  He previously taught at Valparaiso University School of Law, Notre Dame Law School, and DePaul College of Law in the United States.  In addition to his academic positions, Zachary is Senior Counsel at McNair International (London & Doha) and Of Counsel Sports Law and Director of Schelstraete Middle East at Schelstraete Equine Law (Amsterdam and Doha).  He serves on international dispute resolution panels with Sport Resolutions UK and the Qatar Sports Arbitration Tribunal.  A member of the Washington DC Bar, Zachary previously practiced as an associate attorney with Buckley, LLP.  He holds a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, a B.A. and M.A. in History from The Johns Hopkins University, a Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in Religious Ethics from the University of Virginia, and an LLM in Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute at Pepperdine University School Law. He also studied Flute at the Peabody Conservatory of Music.

Richard Deutsch is a Partner at Pillsbury’s in Houston office.  Rich represents clients worldwide in all aspects of international arbitrations and government investigations, starting from the earliest signs of potential issues through final resolution.  Rich has over 30 years of experience and has represented clients in arbitrations under all of the major institution rules, including the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), as well as ad-hoc arbitrations under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules.

Julianne Jaquith

Julianne Jaquith is an associate in Quinn Emanuel’s Houston and Washington, D.C. offices. She joined the firm in 2017 from another international law firm.  Julianne represents clients in international arbitration proceedings, including sovereign governments and foreign corporations in investor state disputes, international commercial arbitration matters, and cross border litigation.  Her experience spans many sectors, including energy, oil and gas, mining, telecommunications, and post-merger and acquisition disputes.  She has experience with matters administered by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and under other international arbitration rules, including UNCITRAL, ICDR, ICC, and JAMS.

Julianne has had a leading role in high-stakes investor state and commercial arbitrations, as well as cross border litigations.  While her practice focuses on disputes involving Latin America, she has also handled disputes in various countries throughout the world.  Clients frequently praise her diligence, commitment to getting the best outcome, oral advocacy skills, and leadership.  Legal 500 has named her as a recommended lawyer for international arbitration (2021 and 2023) and international litigation (2023).

Prior to law school, Julianne also spent a year living in Ibarra, Ecuador as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant.  She also spent two years prior to law school as an Honors Paralegal in the Networks and Technology Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division.

Ms. Catherine Kettlewell is Senior Legal Counsel in one of the Case Management Teams at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID). Ms. Kettlewell was with ICSID from January 2011 to January 2015 and rejoined in August 2017.

Prior to joining ICSID, Ms. Kettlewell was an associate with the law firms of Magallón Abogados in Mexico City, Mexico (1998 – 1999), Baker & McKenzie in San Francisco, CA (2000 – 2002), Squire Patton Boggs in Washington, D.C. (2006 – 2011), and Arnold & Porter in Washington, D.C. (2015-2017).

Ms. Kettlewell holds degrees from University of California at Berkeley (LL.M.), University of Barcelona (Masters in Law and Bioethics) and Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (Law Degree).

She is admitted to practice law in Mexico, the State of California and the District of Columbia.

Silvia Marchili is a partner at White & Case, based in Miami and Houston.  With over 20 years of experience in international arbitration, Silvia has first-chaired cases involving billions of US Dollars, mainly in the oil & gas, electricity, and mining sectors.  Silvia also regularly sits as arbitrator appointed by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Court and other arbitral institutions.  An expert in investment arbitration, she co-authored a treatise on ICSID Annulment published by Oxford University Press.

Denise Peterson

Denise Peterson is a full-time mediator and arbitrator. In the fall of 2022, she joined South Texas College of Law as an adjunct professor and “pracademic” in dispute resolution. She teaches both the mediation clinic and negotiation. She graduated from South Texas in 2010 and became an associate for Morgan Lewis, working on matters relating to the housing crisis, asbestos defense, employment, and general civil litigation. She is licensed in Texas and New York and is a qualified solicitor to the senior courts of England and Wales. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a past vice chair of the North American Branch.  Currently pursuing her master’s in legal history, she writes and speaks frequently on Houston’s civil rights history, implicit bias, and the demographic disparity in law practice, mediation, and negotiation.

Peter F. Phillips - 2023

Peter Phillips is an arbitrator, mediator and teacher practicing through Business Conflict Management LLC in Montclair, New Jersey. He has mediated and arbitrated hundreds of disputes and is listed on many provider panels, including CPR, American Arbitration Association, the state and federal courts of New Jersey and New York, FINRA, China Council for Promotion of International Trade, and others. He is accredited by the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators and certified by the International Mediation Institute.

A recognized authority on conflict management and resolution, Mr. Phillips is Director of the ADR Skills Program and Distinguished Adjunct Professor at New York Law School.  He has been Guest Lecturer at New York University School of Law, Fordham Law School, Columbia University, and Pepperdine University School of Law.  He has taught, lectured and conducted workshops in the United States, Europe, Africa and Asia. He is editor of four books, chapter contributor to six books, and author of three CEDR Award-winning films, as well as many articles on ADR.  Mr. Phillips has received training from the Straus Institute of Pepperdine University School of Law, CPR Institute, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, ICC, CIArb, and others.

Mr. Phillips is a member of the Justice Marie L. Garibaldi American Inn of Court for Alternative Dispute Resolution, the American Bar Association Business Law Section (former Chair, Dispute Resolution Committee) and Dispute Resolution Section (former member of Council), and the Union International des Avocats World Mediation Forum.  He is a member of the bars of the states of New York, New Jersey, California, and of the United States Supreme Court.

From 1998 to 2008, he served as Senior Vice President of the CPR Institute in New York City.  From 1987 to 1998 he was a litigation associate at Cahill Gordon & Reindel and Schulte Roth & Zabel in New York City. Mr. Phillips is a cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College and a magna cum laude graduate of New York Law School, and received a diploma from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Mr. Phillips has served as a Trustee of New York Law School, and of the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).  He is Director and President and Director of the Richard Wagner Society of New York.  He maintains a blog at www.BusinessConflictManagement.com.

Cherie O. Taylor is a Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law Houston, where she teaches International Business Transactions, Transactional Skills (International Business), International Law, International Arbitration, and Civil Procedure. She has published widely in the field of international economic law with an emphasis on regionalism, WTO/GATT law and dispute settlement and U.S. trade policy. Her scholarship has been published by the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law and the Northwestern Journal of International Law and Business. Professor Taylor is the former Chair of the International Economic Law Group (IELG) of the American Society of International Law and still serves on its Advisory Board. While serving as Vice Chair and Chair of the IELG, she organized two IELG scholarly conferences, one of which, International Economic Conflict and Resolution, was held at South Texas College of Law Houston. Professor Taylor serves as the Director of the Institute for International Legal practice & National Security and as the founder/advisor to CURRENTS: Journal of International Economic Law at South Texas College of Law Houston. She earned her A.B. at Harvard-Radcliffe and her J.D. at the University of Georgia where she served as a Notes Editor on the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law and was admitted to the Order of the Coif. Immediately after graduation, she clerked for Judge Thomas A. Clark on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Before coming to South Texas College of Law Houston, she practiced in the International Trade Group at Steptoe & Johnson, Washington, D.C. where she focused on import relief actions, Section 301 cases, and advising clients on trade legislation and multilateral and regional trade agreements. While in practice Professor Taylor also earned her LL.M at Georgetown University Law Center.

Timothy J. Tyler

Tim practices international commercial arbitration, investor-state arbitration under treaties and state contracts, and associated U.S. litigation. He represents clients in many industries (most frequently in the energy value chain, including renewables), drafts international dispute-resolution clauses and procedures, and counsels clients on how to structure investment holdings into emerging markets to maximize investment-treaty protection.

Tim has been involved in arbitrations under all major rules, in the major seats, under numerous applicable laws. He has advised on, or been counsel in, investors-state cases under tens of bilateral investment treaties or free-trade agreements. As an Adjunct Professor at The University of Texas School of Law, Tim has taught international commercial arbitration since 2005 and investor-state arbitration since 2010.

For experience Highlights, visit: https://www.velaw.com/people/timothy-j-tyler/.

Yanett Quiroz Valdovinos

Yanett Quiroz Valdovinos is the Director of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution in charge of the Houston office. The ICDR Houston office provides case management services to parties and clients from throughout the world with a particular focus on the South Central United States and cross-border actions in Mexico. This office also has a primary focus on providing dispute resolution services to the energy sector. From 2006 to 2014 she served as the Secretary General for the Mediation and Arbitration Commission of the Mexico City National Chamber of Commerce (CANACO)
Yanett is an attorney licensed in Mexico. She holds a Law and Master’s degree from Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico. She is a member of the Mexican Bar (BMA) and of the National Association of Corporate Counsel (ANADE).