Addleshaw Goddard is expanding the expertise and reach of its international arbitration practice with the appointment of Sarah Z. Vasani as Partner in its London office.

Sarah is an international arbitration specialist with particular experience in energy, oil & gas and mining disputes.

Sarah joins from King & Spalding LLP, where she was Of Counsel. Her practice focuses on large-scale investment project disputes in North and Latin America, Central Asia, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Africa, for clients such as Chevron, ConocoPhillips, El Paso Corporation, Sempra Energy, Murphy Oil Corporation, Reliance Industries Ltd., Exterran, and Madagascar Oil.

Sarah has represented clients before all major arbitral institutions including the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and in arbitrations conducted under the UNCITRAL Rules.

Simon Kamstra, Head of International Arbitration at Addleshaw Goddard, said:

"International Arbitration is a key investment priority for us given the global nature of the disputes regime today, and reflects our strategy of focussing on high complexity and high value work. Sarah has a proven track record at the very highest level of international arbitration. Her expertise in energy, natural resources, and industrials, combined with a decade’s worth of work in investor/state arbitration, full fluency in Spanish, and qualification both in England & Wales as well as the United States, is a key attraction and will assist our global practice and international client base. Combining that experience with our highly regarded team, will give us every opportunity to grow as we intend."

Addleshaw Goddard's nine-partner International Arbitration Group operates across the firm's offices in Asia, the GCC and UK, and has experience acting as counsel on major international arbitrations, and advising multinationals, banks and governments on arbitrations seated in all the main arbitral centres, including London, Paris, Stockholm and the DIFC. It conducts arbitration in all of its offices, which are located in London, Leeds, Manchester, Hong Kong, Dubai, Qatar, Oman and Singapore.

The practice complements Addleshaw Goddard's renowned wider dispute resolution practice consisting of over 30 partners, and known for its roles in some the most complex international work in the London market, including: Beresovsky v Abramovitch; Dar Al Arkan Real Estate and Bank Alkhair v Al Refai and others and KWL v UBS.

ENDS

Notes to editors:

Sarah has spent her entire career with King & Spalding. She joined the Houston office in 2006 following a clerkship with the ICC in Paris, and moved to the Washington D.C. office a year later. She joined the London office in 2013. She is qualified in England & Wales, Washington D.C., and Texas.

In addition to native English, Sarah is fluent in Spanish and has conducted cases where the language of the arbitration is Spanish only.

Representative cases:

Representative Commercial Arbitration Cases:

Cases conducted under the LCIA, ICC, ICDR, AAA, and WIPO arbitration rules pertaining to energy (oil, gas, mining, and power), and other sectors involving countries spanning the globe.

Recent representative matters include:

• Representing India’s largest private oil & gas company in two UNCITRAL arbitrations against the Indian Government, one in relation to the company’s right to cost recovery under a production sharing contract and the other relating to gas pricing.
• Representing a major US-based oil and gas services provider against a Kazakh company in three LCIA arbitrations governed by English law. The dispute involved three separate agreements to provide goods and services to a gas processing and treatment facility in Kazakhstan (an interim services agreement, a technical consultancy agreement and an operations and maintenance agreement).
• Representing a Swiss technology company in a LCIA-administered arbitration against a US technology giant concerning a licensing dispute governed by the substantive laws of CA and the US, and the procedural laws of England.
• Representing a Mexican publishing distributor in a London-based LCIA arbitration against an Anglo-Greek publishing house. The dispute concerned the breach of an exclusive distribution agreement, and expanded to include copyright and criminal matters. 

Representative Public Investment Cases:

• Chevron Corp. & Texaco Petroleum Co. v. Ecuador(oil production and exploration, environmental remediation and government corruption);
• Waguih Siag v. Egypt (hotel resort development); 
• El Paso Energy Int’l Co. v. Argentina (hydrocarbon and electricity concessions, including PPAs);
• Azurix v. Argentina (water and sewer services concession agreement); 
• Exterran v. Venezuela (natural gas investments); 
• Pan American Energy LLC and BP Argentina Exploration Co. v. Argentina (hydrocarbon and electricity concessions, including power purchase agreements); 
• Madagascar Oil Ltd. v. Madagascar (hydrocarbons exploration); 
• Renco v. Peru (metallurgical complex refining and processing copper, lead, zinc and other metals)