Moderator: Sarah Malik – CEO of SOL International and International  Disputes Counsel
Panelists: Gary Born

Head of Rule of Law Business, LexisNexis Middle East 

Sarah Haddadi is the Head of Rule of Law and Deputy Head of the LexisNexis Middle East office. She studied Law at Paris La Sorbonne University and Assas University, where she completed a Master’s degree in Rule of Law and Lobbying. Before joining LexisNexis, Sarah worked in a prominent law firm in Paris, specialising in private law. She joined the LexisNexis team in 2015 and has been based in Dubai since 2016, where she manages the LexisNexis Rule of Law activity in the MENA region.

Chair of the International Arbitration Practice Group, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP

Gary Born, Chair of the International Arbitration Practice Group at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, is one of the world’s preeminent authorities on international commercial arbitration and international litigation. He has served as counsel in over 650 arbitrations, including several of the most prominent arbitrations in ICC and ad hoc history. He has sat as an arbitrator in over 200 institutional and ad hoc arbitrations. Mr Born is President of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) Court of Arbitration and serves in an advisory capacity in other institutions worldwide. He is a member of the American Law Institute and of the Board of Trustees of the British Institute for International and Comparative Law. He has served on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, the Advisory Committee of the ALI’s Restatement of US International Arbitration Law, the Advisory Committee of the ALI Restatement of US Foreign Relation Law (Fourth) and as co-chair of the ABA International Section, Committee on International Aspects of Litigation.

CEO of SOL International and International Disputes Counsel

Sarah Malik is an award-winning lawyer who achieved Litigator of the Year (2022) at the first GCC Women in Law Awards and received an honourable mention in the ‘Law Firm Leader of the Year’ category at the same awards.

In March 2022, SOL was named by Legal 500 EMEA as a ‘Firm to Watch in Dispute Resolution: Arbitration and International Litigation’. Sarah and SOL have been further nominated as Women Lawyer of the Year and Rising Law Firm of the Year. She is a member of the SIAC Users Council in the Middle East and is appointed to the Lagos Panel of Arbitration Neutrals. Sarah is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and accepts appointments to sit as an Arbitrator. She undertakes international commercial arbitrations as Counsel (DIAC, ADCCAC, DIFC-LCIA, ICC) and practices commercial litigation at the DIFC and ADGM Courts.

At the end of 2019, she authored “A Guide to GCC Arbitration”, published by LexisNexis and in 2018, she authored “The UAE Chapter on Arbitration in the International Comparative Legal Guide”. Sarah is regularly invited to speak worldwide on arbitration, including for the ICC, CIArb and IBA.

Founding Partner of Akinci Law Office

Ziya Akinci, is the founding partner of Akinci Law Office. He is also the President of ISTAC and the head of the International Private Law Division of Galatasaray University Faculty of Law.

He focuses on dispute resolution and acted as counsel and arbitrator in many international proceedings, including construction projects.

Professor Akıncı has been listed and recognised by numerous international organisations such as WWL, Legal500 and GAR 100 for his outstanding success in dispute resolution as well as construction law.

Dr. Özgün Çelebi works as an assistant professor of civil law at Koç University in Istanbul. She received her undergraduate degree from Galatasaray University and her LL.M degree from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University. She holds a PhD from Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne University in contract law and has received the associate professor title from the Turkish Inter-University Council. Before joining Koç University, she worked for several years at Esin Attorney Partnership as a senior associate in the arbitration department and focused her practice on disputes relating to mergers and transactions and construction agreements. She has published in a wide variety of civil law-related areas, including law of contracts and tort law as well as in arbitration. As a scholar she has taught, among others, law of obligations and law of mixed contracts.

Graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 1988 and worked in the same university until 1994. He had private practice from 1995 to 2000 in Istanbul. He joined BP Turkey Legal Team in 2000 as Legal Counsel. In 2006 joined Siemens Turkey as General Counsel and served as Siemens GC & Board Member until 2018.
Since April 2018, he is in SOCAR Turkey. After serving as Chief Legal Officer until the end of 2023, currently Senior Advisor to CEO (Legal Matters).
He is an active Arbitrator in ISTAC and represented companies under his responsibility as party counsel on several arbitration cases.