Co-Chair, International Arbitration
Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP
Arif Hyder Ali is the co-chair of Weil’s International Arbitration practice, which consists of some 30 partners and associates spread across the firm’s 21 offices. Mr. Ali is based in the firm’s Washington, DC office.
He is consistently rated as one of the world’s leading international arbitration and public international lawyers by: Chambers and Partners (USA, Global and Latin America), Global Arbitration Review, Who's Who in American Law, Who's Who in Public International Law, The Legal Media Group's Guide to the World's Experts in Commercial Arbitration, Lawdragon, PLC Which Lawyer?, The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, Washington Super Lawyers, and The International Who's Who of Commercial Arbitration Lawyers. He has also received several awards for client service and results. For example, in 2011, he received the International Law Office's Client Choice Award for International Arbitration (USA); and in 2011, he was decorated by the King of Bahrain with the Order of Bahrain (II) for his role in representing Bahrain in its territorial and maritime border dispute with Qatar before the International Court of Justice.
Mr. Ali has represented parties from the United States and Canada, Central and South America, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and across Asia in international commercial and investment arbitrations under many of the major international and regional arbitral regimes (e.g., ICC, ICSID, LCIA, UNCITRAL, ICDR, CRCICA, DIAC). He has also represented parties before inter-governmental tribunals, including the US-Iran Claims Tribunal and the United Nations Compensation Commission.
He has served as lead counsel in arbitrations covering a broad range of industries and economic activity, including foreign direct investment; privatization; the construction, operation and commercialization of thermal, nuclear, and hydro power plants; oil and gas pipeline construction and concession-related matters; mining concessions; gas pricing disputes; natural resource exploitation projects and contracts; the development and operation of tourism and hospitality projects; project finance and development agreements; contract stabilization and renegotiation issues; patents and trademarks; top-level and second-level domain names; and information technology-related disputes. A number of his cases have set important precedents and are the subject of academic commentary.
Mr. Ali frequently sits as an arbitrator and has also served as a mediator in a wide variety of international disputes, involving the governing laws of different jurisdictions and under various institutional regimes.
He is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, where he teaches international arbitration. From 2007 to 2012 he was an honorary lecturer and member of the Global Faculty of the University of Dundee’s Centre for Energy, Mining and Petroleum Law and Policy. He sits on the editorial boards of publications such as the Arbitration and Mediation Review and Dispute Resolution International. He is also an advisory board member of the Foreign Direct Investment International Moot Court Competition and the International Bar Association's Subcommittee on Investment Arbitration. In addition, he has served as an advisor to several arbitral institutions, including the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center, the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, the Gulf Cooperation Council Arbitration Centre, and the Bangladesh International Arbitration Centre.
Mr. Ali has taught at law faculties and spoken at more than one hundred conferences around the world on a wide variety of topics, including dispute resolution and risk management in the hydrocarbons and mineral extraction industries; power sector disputes; construction sector disputes; arbitration developments in various jurisdictions and regions of the world; substantive, procedural, and evidentiary issues in state-investor arbitration; substantive, procedural, and evidentiary issues in international commercial arbitration; enforcement of arbitral awards; information technology and Internet dispute resolution; arbitral deliberations and decision-making; globalization and international economic development; rule of law and international investment; and diversity issues and the practice of international law.
From 1993 to 1996, he was a section chief at the UN Compensation Commission, a special division of the UN Security Council, and from 2000 to 2001, he served as senior counsel at the World Intellectual Property Organization Arbitration and Mediation Center.
While attending Columbia University, Mr. Ali was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Honors Society. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree, summa cum laude, in December 1986. At New York University School of Law, he was awarded the Vanderbilt Medal and was a research assistant to Professor Andreas F. Lowenfeld, a member of the Annual Review of American Law, and president of the International Law Students Association. He received his Juris Doctor degree in 1990.
Mr. Ali is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and is a Registered Foreign Lawyer in England and Wales. His working languages are English, Spanish, and French. He is also conversant in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, and Portuguese.
He is an avid Manchester United fan, secret poet, determined chef, and intrepid traveler. His love for the law is only surpassed by his love for his family.
Profile as of 5/22/2013