Nigel Blackaby Joins the Energy Advisor Board
Nigel Blackaby has joined the board of advisors of the Dialogue’s weekly Energy Advisor.
Based in Washington, DC, Blackaby is global head of the international arbitration group of law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.
He has acted as counsel and arbitrator in more than 100 commercial and investment arbitrations, with a focus on energy and Latin America. He has been lead counsel in major energy investment arbitrations involving exploration and production assets including Repsol v. Argentina for the renationalization of YPF; Burlington (ConocoPhillips) v. Ecuador for the seizure of Amazon oil blocks and related environmental claims; Pan American Energy v. Bolivia for the nationalization of Empresa Petrolera Chaco; and Total v. Argentina for the impacts of the crisis on the upstream energy sector.
He was also involved in several state claims in the gas sector following the Argentine crisis such as CMS v. Argentina and BG Group v. Argentina, which was the first investment arbitration award to be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court. He also represented investors in a number of cases for the nationalization of the Bolivian electricity sector including Rurelec v. Bolivia and GDF Suez v. Bolivia, as well as representing the Republic
of Guatemala in the electricity distribution cases Iberdrola v. Guatemala and TECO v. Guatemala.
Who’s Who Legal recently named Blackaby as one of three United States-based practitioners in the world’s top 35 arbitration specialists.
He is a former president of the IBA Subcommittee on Investment Arbitration, an editor since 1995 of Arbitration International and a founding member of the executive of the LCIA Latin America Users’ Committee. He is author of Redfern and Hunter on International Arbitration (6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2015), Guide to ICSID Arbitration (2nd edition, Kluwer, 2010) and International Arbitration in Latin America (Kluwer, 2003).
A graduate of the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom and the Université d’Aix-Marseille III in France, Blackaby speaks English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.
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