Professor Dr. Nayla Comair-Obeid is the Founding Partner of Obeid & Partners and leads the firm’s dispute resolution practice. A distinguished scholar and practitioner, she is Professor of Private Law and International Commercial Arbitration at the Lebanese University – Faculty of Law, Visiting Professor at the University Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), and a lecturer at the University of Oxford for the CIArb International Commercial Arbitration Diploma. She is also an Associate Member at 3VB Barristers Chambers in London and serves on the Women’s Leadership Board at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Women and Public Policy Program.
Over her 40-year career, Professor Comair-Obeid has built an international reputation for excellence in arbitration and litigation. Her expertise spans international business law, Islamic and Middle Eastern legislation, franchising, shareholder disputes, licensing, administrative law, banking, insurance, intellectual property, telecommunications, construction, and complex corporate and financial litigation. She has represented major domestic and international clients, including state entities and multinational corporations, and has been involved in many of the region’s most significant disputes.
Professor Comair-Obeid is recognized globally as one of the foremost figures in arbitration, having participated in more than 170 domestic and international cases as counsel, arbitrator, chairperson, and legal expert. Her experience includes proceedings conducted under various international arbitration rules such as ICSID, ICC, LCIA, DIAC, CRCICA, BCDR, DIFC-LCIA, and UNCITRAL, across jurisdictions including Lebanon, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, France, the UK, the USA, and Singapore. In 2020, she was named Arbitrator Intelligence’s Presiding Arbitrator of the Year.
Throughout her career, Professor Comair-Obeid has been sought after as a legal expert on Middle Eastern laws in foreign courts and arbitral tribunals. Her clients include states, state-owned entities, investors, banks, construction and telecommunications corporations, and multinational companies.
An accomplished author, she has written The Law of Business Contracts in the Middle East (Kluwer Law) and numerous publications in Arabic, French, and English on topics such as international contract law, arbitration, and Islamic finance. She is a frequent speaker at international conferences and recognized as a thought leader in her field.
Professor Comair-Obeid currently serves as Vice Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and is a member of its Executive Board. She is also a Companion and former President of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb), Vice Chair of the IBA Arbitration Committee, and a member of the ICCA Governing Board. Additionally, she sits on the ICSID panel of arbitrators and conciliators appointed by the President of the World Bank, is a Trustee of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, a member of the LCIA Court, and formerly served as Commissioner of the United Nations Compensation Commission in Geneva.
She holds a D.E.A. in Business Law (1980), a Master’s degree in Lebanese and French Law from St. Joseph University and Lyon II-Jean Moulin University, and a PhD in Business Law from the University of Paris II, Panthéon-Assas (1994).
Professor Comair-Obeid is admitted to practice law in both Beirut and Paris. Fluent in Arabic, French, and English, she has been described by Chambers Global as “the grand dame of Middle East arbitration,” “pre-eminent in her field,” and “one of the most remarkable people in arbitration.” Legal 500 has praised her “enormous reservoir of arbitral experience,” and WWL Thought Leaders Arbitration has lauded her as a “legendary lawyer” with exceptional mastery of arbitration across both civil and common law traditions.
