Matouk Bassiouny

Advising Kuwaiti investors in the largest-ever ICSID claim against Egypt

This Cairo-based firm was founded in 2005 by John Matouk and Omar Bassiouny with an emphasis on corporate and M&A, project finance and capital markets, alongside its disputes work.

Matouk, who heads the disputes group, is a New York-qualified lawyer and US-Egyptian dual national.

In 2015, the firm hired partner Amr Abbas from another Egyptian firm, Sharkawy & Sarhan. He previously spent three years at White & Case, where he worked on investor-state and commercial arbitrations, and before that worked at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Abbas has also advised Egypt’s competition authority and had a hand in drafting natural gas legislation.

A recent addition to the team is partner Mohamed Shehata, a former general counsel at Emirati-owned mobile operator Etisalat Misr. Ahmed Abdelhakeem and Mohamed Sallam were made counsel in 2020.

The team has experience as counsel in ICSID and ICC cases as well as matters before Egypt’s main arbitral institution, the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration.

Who uses it?

Clients in the telecoms sector regularly use the firm, including Telecom Italia and the UAE’s Etisalat. It has also advised ArcelorMittal; Spain’s Union Fenosa Gas and hotel chain Melia International; US commodities trader Cargill; and California-based Agilent Technologies.

Egyptian contractor Orascom Construction and carmakers Skoda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and Uber have used it for local litigation matters. It has also defended Uber in a complaint before the European Competition Authority.

Track record

Matouk Bassiouny paired with Latham & Watkins in 2015 to represent Luxembourg steelmaker ArcelorMittal in a US$600 million ICSID claim against Egypt concerning the construction of a steel plant near the Red Sea. The dispute settled a year later on confidential terms.

The firm obtained a US$68 million ICC award for the Emirates International Investment Company against a major cross-border company, winning costs. It advised the same client in a shareholder dispute with a prominent Egyptian business tycoon relating to control of a major steel company, obtaining a US$6 million award.

It won a Cairo Centre award worth 40 million Egyptian pounds for German-owned construction client Bamag MENA in a dispute over a wastewater plant project and then enforced it. There have been other successes for client Middle East Glass in a mediation of a shareholder dispute; and for Cargill in a Cairo Centre case against two Egyptian companies.

In the courts, it has helped a Japanese carmaker block claims of US$1 billion by enforcing an arbitration clause, and successfully defended a Swiss Chambers award in favour of client Agilent against an annulment challenge.

Recent events

Matouk Bassiouny won an award for Reliance Heavy Industries at the Cairo Centre against South Valley Cement Company over a management contract. The tribunal dismissed all counterclaims against the firm’s client, bringing the value of the award to over €44 million.

The firm has teamed up with King & Spalding to represent a group of Kuwaiti investors in an investment treaty claim against Egypt worth more than US$10 billion – believed to be the largest ICSID claim the state has ever faced. The dispute concerns a cancelled project to build a new city south of Cairo.

The firm provided local law advice to Spanish-Italian venture Union Fenosa Gas in relation to its US$2 billion dispute with Egypt concerning an LNG plant. Egypt finally settled the dispute in 2021 with a cash payment of US$395 million over three years.

It successfully acted for the Egyptian football club Nogoom FC in a case at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne.

The firm promoted Ahmed Abdelhakeem and Mohamed Sallam to counsel.

Matouk Bassiouny’s head of litigation Osman Mowafy left after more than 12 years with the firm to co-found a new firm, Adsero – Ragy Soliman & Partners.

Client comment

A client who wishes to remain anonymous says that when it comes to disputes work, she would not consider using any other firm in Egypt. 

She says Matouk Bassiouny lawyers provide “international class legal expertise with impeccable English, in an easy-to-understand manner,” she says. “They also have a depth of experience in local law matters and the policies and procedures that apply in Egypt. This makes them very rare in the Egyptian market, in my view.”