John Fellas

Over 30 years dispute resolution experience at a major law firm in New York City.

Recognised by Best Lawyers as the Lawyer of Year for Commercial International in New York in 2019 and Lawyer of Year for Governmental International Arbitration in New York in 2022.

Dunelm, B.A. Law (Hons.) 1983 International arbitrator and arbitration counsel.

Wendy Miles KC

Over 25 years’ arbitration experience, both commercial and investment.

Member of the ICC Court of Arbitration for over a decade.  Appointed by the United Kingdom to the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators and ICSID Panel of Conciliators Canterbury, B.A. LL.B, NZ (1994), LLM (First), NZ, 1998.

Christian Leathley

Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP (New York).

Former Adjunct Professor at New York University School of Law and University of Pennsylvania Law School.

25 years’ experience in international arbitration; practiced in New York, London, Madrid and Amsterdam. Chambers/Legal 500 ranked for the U.S. and Latin America. Dunelm, B.A. Law (Hons.) 1995.

Charles T. Kotuby Jr

Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and the University of Durham Law School. Former partner at Jones Day in Washington DC

15 years of international arbitration and public international law experience.

Ranked Band 1 for International Arbitration in Chambers USA Dunelm LLM (Hons.) 2001

Manish Aggarwal

Manish is a dual-qualified English solicitor and Indian advocate, and partner in the London office of Three Crowns. He has extensive experience of representing clients in both commercial and  investment treaty arbitrations across a broad range of sectors (including energy, infrastructure, life  sciences, telecommunications, and technology) and in arbitration related court litigation. He also has experience as arbitrator, recently serving as a sole arbitrator in a Singapore-seated SIAC arbitration and a party appointed arbitrator in a London-seated ICC arbitration.

Manish is a co-chair of the LCIA’s Young International Arbitration Group, serves as a faculty  member of Delos Dispute Resolution’s Remote Oral Advocacy Programme, and regularly teaches  commercial and investment arbitration at law schools across the globe, including Queen Mary  University’s School of International Arbitration, King’s College Dickson Poon School of Law, and  European Public Law Organization’s Academy of International Economic Law and Policy.

Manish is consistently ranked as a leading practitioner in arbitration and public international law by major directories such as Who’s Who Legal and The Legal 500, with clients describing him as “the  total package” who “has excellent legal skills, is a great advocate and a great manager”. He has also been recognised in the India Business Law Journal’s list of top international lawyers for India-related matters, in which peers describe him as a “highly skilled advocate with a staggering depth of investment law insight”.

Lei Chen

Professor Lei CHEN (PhD) is Chair in International Arbitration and Chinese Law at Durham Law School, Durham University. He is Director of Durham International Dispute Resolution Institute and Co-Director of Centre for Chinese Law and Policy. Professor Chen's research areas are comparative private law and international commercial arbitration. Chen is on the panel of arbitrators and mediators in many leading arbitration institutions such as HKIAC, SCIA, KCAB, CIETAC, B.A.C., SHIAC, AIAC, C.A.A. and THAC etc. He is also a fellow of the Hong Kong Institute of Arbitrators. Apart from participating in international academic networks, he advises various international organizations and governments and frequently provides expert opinions across multiple arbitration institutions and courts in Hong Kong, P.C.A. (Hague), Washington DC, Geneva, Singapore and England. Professor Chen is an expert member on ODR collaborating with UNCITRAL. He has led consultancy work commissioned by Microsoft Inc. and the Great Britain China Centre, UK.

Christiane Deniger

Senior Vice President, Burford Capital

Christiane Deniger is a Senior Vice President with responsibility for assessing and underwriting legal risk as part of Burford’s investment team as well as for originating non-US investments. She is also a contributing author to various publications on international arbitration and third-party financing. A native French speaker, she is fluent in English and Italian and has a working knowledge of Spanish.

Prior to joining Burford, Ms. Deniger was a Senior Case Assessor and Principal at Calunius Capital, where she was responsible for assessing the merits of providing finance for large international arbitration and litigation disputes and competition claims and for developing the transactional structures involved in each investment. Before Calunius, Ms. Deniger was a Senior Associate in the international arbitration and dispute resolution department at Fried Frank, where she focused on international arbitration and regulatory, fraud and white-collar crime investigations. Ms. Deniger began her career as an Associate at Dewey & LeBoeuf.

Ms. Deniger graduated from the University of Law in London and has a joint honors LLB from the University of Durham.

Can Eken

Dr Can Eken is an assistant professor in commercial law at Durham University. He teaches and researches international commercial arbitration and investment arbitration. His research interests also cover third-party funding, online dispute resolution and other alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. Dr Eken is admitted as an attorney in California and Turkey, and as a solicitor in England and Wales. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb) and a committee member of the CIARB Thames Valley Branch. Dr Eken has acted in complex arbitration cases as counsel and legal advisor. Dr Eken accepts appointments as an arbitrator, and he is on the panel of arbitrators at the Shanghai International Arbitration Centre and Thailand Arbitration Centre. 

Ronan Feehily

RONÁN FEEHILY is Associate Professor of Commercial Law at Durham University, where he teaches International Commercial Arbitration on the LLM programme and International Commercial Mediation on the LLB and LLM programmes. An experienced commercial lawyer, arbitrator and mediator, he is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, CEDR Accredited Mediator, and Member of the Mediation Committee of the International Bar Association. He has published numerous articles covering international commercial dispute resolution. His monograph, International Commercial Mediation, Law and Regulation in Comparative Context, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. His previous books include An Introduction to the Law of Contract in New Zealand (2018), Understanding Company Law (2019) and Commercial Law and the Legal System (2020).

Dame Elizabeth Gloster

Dame Elizabeth Gloster practised as a commercial and Chancery QC at One Essex Court from 1991 until 2004, before accepting an appointment as a High Court judge, becoming the first woman to be appointed a judge of the Commercial Court. She was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2013 and became Vice-President of the Civil Division of that Court in 2016. Since retiring from the Court of Appeal in 2018, Liz has returned to One Essex Court to practise as a full-time international commercial arbitrator. She has been appointed both as chair and co-arbitrator in a large number and wide range of international arbitrations including insurance/reinsurance, shipping, banking, gas and oil, electricity pricing, construction, joint venture and investment disputes. Liz is one of 25 persons listed as willing and able to serve as a member of an arbitration panel under the Agreement between the European Union and the United Kingdom relating to the UK’s Withdrawal from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community.

Sir Bernard Rix 

Sir Bernard 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.

Todd Weiler

Todd Weiler is an independent arbitrator and barrister who specializes in foreign investment and trade disputes. As a pioneer in the field of investment treaty arbitration, Dr Weiler has amassed over twenty-five years of experience serving as co-counsel, testifying expert, consulting expert, and arbitrator in many dozens of international disputes – which have involved an extensive array of clients, countries, economic sectors, and dispute settlement fora.

Called to the bar of Ontario in 1999, Dr Weiler received an Honours B.A. in political science from the University of Waterloo (Canada), a M.A. in public policy and a LL.B. from Western University (Canada), a LL.M. in international trade law from the University of Ottawa, and a LL.M. and S.J.D. in public international law from the University of Michigan. His name has also appeared on the Who's Who Legal list of leading international arbitration lawyers since 2007.

Dr Weiler joined Artibra International in 2021, as part of his transition into serving exclusively as arbitrator in international commercial and public international law cases, in addition to continuing his work as consulting expert in foreign investment protection matters.

Ayse Yazir

Ayse Yazır joined Bench Walk Advisors in 2018 and is Global Head of Origination, based in London.

She has an outstanding reputation in the litigation funding industry, where she originates, underwrites, and monitors funding in various litigation sectors including international and commercial arbitration, insolvency, class actions and global litigation matters as well as law firm and corporate portfolio arrangements and defense funding. Prior to joining Bench Walk Advisors, Ayse worked as a Technical Manager in Arthur J Gallagher’s dispute resolution team where she worked with international law firms and litigation funders around the world to deliver funding and insurance solutions. She has seven years senior technical underwriting experience with a global funder based in London, where she reviewed over 400 cases a year.

Ayse has been instrumental in drafting rules on third-party funding for both UNCITRAL and ICSID and is currently working at CIArb’s TPF drafting committee. Ayse has been recognised as a ‘Thought Leader: Third-Party Funding’ by Who’s Who Legal for four consecutive years, ranked in Chambers & Partners both in the UK and Europe, Legal500 named as the industry leader, named as one of the top 10 Most Influential Litigation Funders by Business Today and ranked by Lawdragon as the leading funder. Ayse won ‘Leading Dispute Resolution Expert’ at the Lawyer Monthly Awards 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 and won the “Litigation Funder of the Year” award at Finance Monthly Awards 2021 and 2023. She regularly speaks at key industry conferences, including GAR, Legal 500 GC Summit, IBA and EFILA Annual Conference. She has been named a “Woman Leader in the Legal Industry” (2022) by Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines and again in 2023 as a “Role Model in Law” by Vogue. Ayse was chosen as the “Person of the Week” by Green.Org and was the finalist for “Women Leader of 2022” by the Women in Law and Diversity Awards. Ayse was again nominated for this category in 2023.