James E Castello

Partner, King & Spalding LLP

James Castello, an international arbitration partner in King & Spalding’s Paris office, has advised and represented clients in a wide range of commercial and investor-state arbitrations under multiple rules and ad hoc procedures. For nearly 24 of his 36 years in practice, James has been based in Europe, where he serves as both counsel and arbitrator. In Who’s Who Legal: France, it is stated that he is ‘an “illustrious” senior arbitrator and counsel [who] is seen as a “top specialist” in large infrastructure and commercial projects, especially in the energy sector’.

Having served since 2001 on the US delegation to the Arbitration Working Group at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), James has worked on all the UNCITRAL instruments relating to arbitration or mediation that have been drafted or revised in the past two decades. James has also written extensively on UNCITRAL’s Arbitration Rules, including in books published by Oxford, Kluwer and Juris. Appointed in 2007 to the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), James sat on the subcommittee that drafted the 2014 LCIA Rules and now serves as deputy chair of the LCIA’s board of directors. He also sits on the International Advisory Board of the Vienna International Arbitral Centre and is an Executive Committee vice chair of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration.

He obtained his university degrees from Yale and Berkeley and is admitted to practise in Paris, New York and Washington, DC.