Professor Nayla Comair-Obeid is the founding partner of Obeid & Partners (Dubai, Paris & Beirut) and heads the firm’s dispute resolution practice since 1987. Her areas of expertise range from international business law and Islamic and Middle Eastern legislation to franchising, shareholder issues, licensing, banking, insurance, intellectual property, technology, telecommunication, construction, energy and natural resources, and corporate and financial disputes.

Prof Comair-Obeid has been identified amongst the world’s foremost arbitrator practitioners, and has been actively involved in more than 150 domestic and international investment and complex commercial arbitrations as a party appointed arbitrator, chairperson, sole arbitrator, counsel and expert in Arabic, French and English- language. She has been nominated Arbitrator Intelligence’s Presiding Arbitrator of the Year for 2020.

Throughout her career, Professor Comair-Obeid has held and continues to hold pre-eminent positions in many of the major international arbitration institutions. She has been recently elected the Vice Chair of the ICC (as of June 2022) and has been a member of the ICC Executive Board since 2019. She has also been recently appointed the Chair of the Jury of the ICC Institute Prize (2023 edition) and is a member of the Council of the ICC Institute of World Business Law.

Additionally, Professor Comair-Obeid is currently a trustee of the Cairo Regional Center for International Commercial Arbitration, the Vice Chair of the Arbitration Committee in the International Bar Association, member of the ICCA Governing Board, and Board Member of Women’s Leadership Board of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School, amongst others.

Professor Comair-Obeid has authored numerous publications in Arabic, French and English covering a range of legal fields and is frequently invited to speak as a leading expert in her field.

Professor Comair-Obeid is also a Professor of private law and international commercial arbitration at the Lebanese University – Faculty of Law, visiting Professor at University Panthéon-Assas Paris II, and lecturer at University of Oxford for the CIArb International Commercial Arbitration Diploma. She obtained her PhD in Business Law from the University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas (1994).

Professor Comair-Obeid is a member of the Beirut Bar and the Paris Bar. She is also an Associate Member at 3VB Barristers Chambers in London.