Nayla Comair-Obeid

Partner, Obeid Law Firm

Professor Dr Nayla Comair-Obeid, founding partner of Obeid & Partners, previously Obeid Law Firm, heads the firm's dispute resolution practice. She is also an associate member of the 3 Verulam Buildings Chambers (3VB) and professor of international commercial arbitration at the Lebanese University, visiting professor at University Panthéon-Assas Paris II, lecturer at Oxford University for the CIArb International Commercial Arbitration Diploma and formerly taught alternative dispute resolution at the Lebanese Judicial Institute. Author of The Law of Business Contracts in the Middle East, Professor Comair-Obeid publishes prolifically and is regularly invited to lecture at world-renowned academic institutions where her articles and scholarly publications are often cited as reference works.

Throughout her career, Professor Comair-Obeid has held and continues to hold prominent positions in several major international arbitration institutions. Professor Comair-Obeid has been elected in 2022 as Vice Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and has been a member of its Board since 2019, she is also the Chair of the Jury of the ICC Institute Prize and a board member of the Women's Leadership Board of the Women and Public Policy Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. Moreover, she is Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Companion since 2018, and is former president of the CIArb for 2017. She also previously chaired the board of trustees of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 2014, and the Lebanon branch of the CIArb between 2004 and 2009. Professor Comair-Obeid is also a member of the London Court of International Arbitration Court; trustee of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Arbitration; council member of the Institute of World Business Law of the International Chamber of Commerce; and a member of the ICSID panel of arbitrators and conciliators. In August 2018, she was appointed as a member of China's International Commercial Expert Committee of the Supreme People's Court.

A specialist in international business law and Islamic and Middle Eastern legislation, Professor Comair-Obeid regularly serves as party-appointed arbitrator, chairperson, sole arbitrator and counsel in complex international arbitrations conducted in Arabic, French or English, both ad hoc and under a variety of international arbitration rules. She is also often called upon as a legal expert on various aspects of Lebanese law and Middle Eastern legislations in foreign courts and arbitral proceedings.