Biography: Arbitration

Jalal El Ahdab (Jil Ahdab) is a well-known international arbitration specialist, with a special focus on the Middle East region.

Mr Ahdab was educated in France at the University of Paris I – Sorbonne (Doctorat en droit - 2003) and Paris II-Assas (Maîtrise Droit Des Affaires – 1996) as well as in Lebanon at the Saint-Joseph and La Sagesse Universities (Licence, 1996). He also graduated from Columbia Law School (LLM, 2002). He holds degrees from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Economics and Political Sciences, 1998) and the Institut Supérieur de Gestion (Business & Management, 1995).

Mr Ahdab is member of both the Beirut (1997) and the Paris (2001) Bars.

Mr Ahdab is currently of counsel in the Paris office of Orrick and his practice, which used to cover principally transactional and corporate work, such as asset financing, cross-border leasing and securitisation, debt restructuring, group (re)structuring, shareholders agreements, focuses today on complex (international) litigation (shareholders or securities suits, class actions, breach of negotiations, bank guarantees) and domestic and international/commercial and investment arbitration (commodities trade, telecom, corporate, port concession).

Jalal El Ahdab has acted as counsel in multiple arbitral proceedings in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, under the rules of the ICC, ICSID, LCIA, VIAC and CAS. He also acted as co-arbitrator and as sole arbitrator in both domestic and international arbitrations.

Mr El Ahdab has written extensively on international arbitration and spoken at numerous international conferences. He recently published the 3rd edition of "Arbitration With the Arab Countries", co-edited with Abdul Hamid El Ahdab, Kluwer. He is also managing editor of the International Journal of Arab Arbitration, published quarterly since January 2009 in Beirut, Lebanon and distributed both in hard copies and electronic versions (see www.journalofarabarbitration.com/english/default.asp; the journal is also available on www.kluweronline.com). He received the 2005 Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry Award for the best thesis and forthcoming book: The Arbitration Clause and the Non-Signatories, to be published in the course of 2012. He is also a regular lecturer at the Versailles Saint Quentin University and at Sciences-Po Paris on arbitration law.

Mr El Ahdab was a member of the ICC Task Force on 'the Revision of the ICC Rules of Arbitration'; of the ICC Task Force on 'Production of Electronic Documents in Arbitration'; and of the ICC Task Force on 'Arbitration Involving States or State Entities' and is currently the ICC-France appointed member of the ICC Working Group on Costs in Arbitration. He is the vice-chair of the French-Arab Chamber of commerce's scientific committee. He is also member of the IBA (vice-chair of the Mediation Techniques Subcommittee); French Arbitration Committee; ASA; LCIA; CAS (arbitrator for Lebanon).

Mr El Ahdab is fluent in French, English and Arabic and has some basic knowledge of Spanish and Italian.