Profile

Dr. Borzu Sabahi is a partner in the international law firm of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP. He advises governments and state-owned entities in investment treaty arbitration, international commercial arbitration and public international law matters. Recognized by Legal 500, International Who’s Who of Commercial Arbitration Lawyers and Who’s Who Legal, Dr. Sabahi is a leading practitioner in the arbitration field.

International arbitration

Dr. Borzu Sabahi’s experience includes serving as counsel and expert in international arbitrations commenced under various bilateral investment treaties, NAFTA Chapter 11, Energy Charter Treaty, and under major arbitral rules such as ICC, ICSID, LCIA, and UNCITRAL. In recent years, he has been particularly involved in matters involving the laws of a number of jurisdictions around the world, including Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Libya, Romania, United States, Venezuela and Vietnam. His industry experience includes energy (oil & gas, power, and renewal energy), mining, construction, royalty agreements, taxation, and financial services. Dr. Sabahi also has experience in representing clients in the World Bank sanctions proceedings. Prior to joining Curtis, he was counsel in an international law firm where he represented private companies and individuals in major international arbitration proceedings.

Thought leadership, lecturing and writing

Dr. Sabahi is the co-Director of the International Investment Law Center at the International Law Institute (ILI), where he designs and oversees training programs for government officials from developing countries and professionals from the private sector on international investment treaties and investor State arbitration. He is currently representing the ILI at the UNCITRAL Working Group III on the reform of the ISDS. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law Center and served as a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School co-teaching seminars on the same subject. He has lectured in a number of countries including India, Nigeria, and Singapore. Dr. Sabahi is a widely published author on various aspects of international investment law and arbitration (with more than 50 publications, including several books), and his writings have been cited by international tribunals and the United States and Switzerland Supreme Courts. He is known for his command of topics relating to assessment of damages. He is Co-Editor in Chief of the BRILL Research Perspectives on International Investment Law & Arbitration, an Editor of Oxford’s Investment Claims and an Associate Editor of the Transnational Disputes Management Journal (TDM). He regularly speaks at and chairs professional conferences dealing with various aspects of international arbitration. He is co-chair emeritus of the Annual Juris Conference on Investment Treaty Arbitration in Washington, DC (served for five years: 2012-2017). During his LLM studies, he was President of Foreign Lawyers at Georgetown (FLAG) (2001-2002).