A guide for international construction companies to dispute resolution in Egypt

MEDIA PARTNER

INTRODUCTION

As Egypt continues to push its infrastructure investment and takes its place as a powerhouse economy in the region, foreign contractors and investors are increasingly looking to position themselves to take advantage of the opportunities of the numerous projects coming to market while safeguarding their rights through agreeing on efficient dispute resolution mechanisms.

This panel discussion will discuss the current landscape for Egypt’s construction and infrastructure sectors, and key issues facing foreign parties when contracting and taking investment decisions in Egypt (including international investor protections). The panel will also share their experiences and insights on how to navigate Egyptian law, particularly the Arbitration Law.

The session is jointly hosted by HKA, Al Dahbashi Gray, Duane Morris and Roger ter Haar QC, with a keynote address by Media Partner, Dr Ismail Selim from the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA).

MODERATOR

Brad A. Molotsky
Partner, Duane Morris (Philadelphia)

Brad practices in the area of real estate law. He serves as a team lead for the Duane Morris Project Development/P3 industry group and as co-head of the firm’s Opportunity Zones practice group. Mr. Molotsky’s primary practice is focused in the areas of opportunity zone fund creation and fund deployment, financing, public private partnership (PPP or P-3), real estate joint ventures (including mixed-use and multi-family development), commercial leasing (including a focus in cannabis leasing), and acquisitions and divestitures. He also has deep experience in environmental, social, governance, public company issues such as enterprise risk, internal audit, compensation, as well as energy efficiency, sustainability and corporate social responsibility.

Prior to joining Duane Morris and for nearly 20 years, Brad served as executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Brandywine Realty Trust. At Brandywine, Brad was responsible for all legal operations of the company, including acquisitions and divestitures, financings, joint ventures, board matters, insurance procurement, litigation oversight, SEC filing oversight and the legal aspects of capital raising. During his tenure, the company grew from 40 buildings to approximately 300 buildings, totaling 28 million square feet.

In 2019, Brad won The Philadelphia Inquirer Influencers of Law Award for Real Estate. He was also named by The Philadelphia Inquirer as an Influencer of Real Estate for Real Estate Legal Excellence in 2019. He was also named in The Legal Intelligencer’s list of Pennsylvania Trailblazers for 2019. Brian was named one of Philadelphia Business Journal’s 2018 “Best of the Bar: Top Lawyers in Philadelphia. He was also named General Counsel of the year by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2014 and NJBIZ in 2013 and was awarded the Martin Luther King Community Service award in 2014, the Township Sustainability Leader Award in 2016 and the Roger Davis Community Service Award in 2017.

Brian is a 1989 cum laude graduate of Villanova University Law School, where he was Order of the Coif, and also earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Villanova University. He is a 1986 cum laude graduate of the University of Delaware. Mr. Molotsky has also earned his LEED AP O+M certification. He also has earned an AV Preeminent® peer review rating from Martindale-Hubbell®.

SPEAKERS

Roger ter Haar QC
Crown Office Chambers (London)

Roger’s practice as an international arbitrator covers Construction, Engineering, Insurance, re-insurance, Energy, Shipbuilding and Professional Negligence.

In June 2020 he ceased to accept new instructions to act as counsel in order to concentrate on work as an arbitrator. During a career spanning over 40 years as an advocate, he appeared as leading counsel in many cases in these areas before trial and appellate courts and arbitral tribunals, including a number of high-value international arbitrations in London, Paris, Geneva, Muscat, Dubai, Qatar, Hong Kong, Singapore, Perth, New York and Washington D.C., and included claims where the amounts at stake were in billions of dollars..

He has vast expertise in the areas of major infrastructure works, Energy (including notable experience including wind farm and Oil & Gas disputes), contracts for the sale of oil, claims related to waste disposal plants and claims relating to contracts for the construction and maintenance of power stations. Additionally, his experience covers allegations of negligence against financial service advisors, insurance brokers, underwriting agents, doctors, solicitors, barristers, surveyors and valuers, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors, patent agents, educational psychologists, teachers and others

Roger’s appointments include presiding arbitrator, tribunal member and sole arbitrator, principally (though by no means exclusively) in ICC, LCIA, DIAC and SIAC. Arbitral seats have included London, Dubai, Oman, Singapore, and the Caribbean. His appointments have involved a wide variety of governing laws, including the laws of England, Hong Kong, Australia, and India as well as Sharia law.

His common law expertise is complemented by a wide experience of civil law systems, including UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait Egypt and the Philippines.

Roger’s International practice spans the globe. He has acted in or arbitrated disputes arising from projects in: Afghanistan, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Bulgaria, China, Dubai, Egypt, Eire, Hong Kong, Gibraltar, India, Indonesia, India, Isle of Man, Israel, Jersey, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Panama, Pakistan, the Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sudan, Taiwan, Tanzania, the USA, Venezuela and, of course, in the UK.

Roger is a member of the HKIAC Panel of Arbitrators, the Panel of KCAB International Arbitrators and of the FIDIC President’s List of Adjudicators. Additionally, he formerly sat as a Chairman of a Lloyd’s Disciplinary Committee.

He sits as a Deputy High Court Judge in the Technology and Construction Court, Administrative Court and the Queen’s Bench Division of the English High Court of Justice.

Haroon Niazi
Partner & Head of Middle East, HKA (Dubai)

Haroon is a former practicing barrister and a Chartered Quantity Surveyor. He holds an honours degree in Law, a master’s degree in Law and a master’s degree in Quantity Surveying. Haroon sits on the working group committee of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in Saudi Arabia.

His experience has been gained both in building and civil engineering construction projects where he has provided specialist advice in relation to pre- and post-contract matters for Contractors and Employers alike. Whilst working in the region, Haroon has been involved in both contentious and non-contentious matters. Haroon has led numerous HKA teams working on flagship oil and gas, railway and airport projects throughout the Middle East.

Haroon is responsible for managing the overall business in the Middle East and takes a lead role in agreeing new appointments for HKA, as well as managing the technical deliverables. He is named in Who’s Who Legal – Construction 2020 as a professional that “possesses remarkable case and project management skills” and brings “strategic, legal, technical, financial and commercial” skills to his work.

Husam Gawish
Partner, HKA (Doha)

Husam is HKA’s Partner responsible for Business Development in the Middle East and North Africa Region. Prior to assuming this role, Husam was HKA’s Country Manager and Head of Operations in Qatar responsible for the overall management and delivery of HKA’s business in the GCC Country. Husam is a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in the UK.

Husam has more than 20 years of diverse engineering, commercial, claims, project management, and business development and marketing experience gained through working on a wide range of major projects in the buildings, infrastructure, industrial, process, and power generation sectors throughout the UK, Africa, Middle East and Asia.

Resident in the GCC region since 2008, Husam has a strong technical background and extensive commercial and contractual experience, backed by bilingual English and Arabic skills. During his career to date, Husam has been involved in several landmark projects around the world, including: the Dubai Metro and Sheikh Zayed Bridge in the UAE; the Songsu Bridge in South Korea; the Bangabandhu (Jamuna) Bridge in Bangladesh; the Landbridge Railway Project in Saudi Arabia; and the Millennium Dome (now O2 Arena) in London, UK.

Paul W. Pocalyko
Partner, HKA (Philadephia)

Paul has more than 34 years of experience in accounting, finance, consulting, and operations management. Paul was involved in assignments related to acquisition disputes, bankruptcy and troubled company issues, construction defaults and delays, economic damages, fraud investigations, and healthcare fraud and abuse. He was also assigned to work related to intellectual property infringements, partnership disputes, products liability, professional liability, real estate disputes, and wrongful termination.

Prior to joining HKA, Paul spent more than half of his career working for a Big Four accounting firm, providing financial consulting and accounting services to attorneys, insurance companies, government agencies, and public and private corporations. He also provided consulting and forensic services to clients in relation to many of the top construction contractors and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) companies in the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In addition, Paul served as an arbitrator in disputes, and frequently gave expert testimony in mediations, arbitration, depositions, and trials.

Paul led teams in overseeing due diligence in acquisitions; provided analysis and control recommendations on bidding processes; negotiated contract provisions, particularly related to billing and reporting requirements; and developed project forecasts on continuing construction work. He further assisted owners with project innovations and change order resolution; prepared cost certifications and liquidating agreements among project participants; and evaluated project catastrophes, including collapse, fire, and explosions. In addition, Paul performed on-site inspections and verifications, assisted contractors with cost reporting and schedule of value billing, and served as an on-site representative for renovation and new construction projects.

Steve Nichol
Partner, Duane Morris (London)

Steve practices in the area of litigation, with a focus on technically complex construction and engineering disputes. Mr. Nichol’s experience covers disputes of varying sizes and complexity across a broad range of industry sectors, with a particular focus on transport, infrastructure, energy and building. His clients cover the full range of industry professionals, from niche suppliers and subcontractors to multinational developers, manufacturers and joint ventures, spanning the UK, Europe, the Middle East and further afield.

As well as TCC and arbitration proceedings, Mr. Nichol’s experience extends to all forms of alternative dispute resolution proceedings, including adjudication, mediation, expert determination and the resolution of claims under preaction protocols. He has been recommended for his work in rail transport by The Legal 500.

Vijay Bange
Partner, Duane Morris (London)

Vijay K. Bange has extensive experience in dealing with construction, engineering, and energy disputes of varying sizes and complexity, both in arbitration proceedings and those in the TCC. Furthermore, since the advent of the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act 1996, Mr. Bange has advised on all aspects of adjudication, and is also an accredited adjudicator on the CIOB and CIC panels. He has considerable experience in acting for and advising both referring and responding parties and adjudicators.

Mr. Bange undertakes a diverse range of work, including non-contentious, advisory steer throughout project life cycle, dispute avoidance strategy and contractual interpretation. Further, he is a keen advocate of innovative ADR approaches. His experience includes advising in relation to large international infrastructure projects, including numerous airports, road, harbor, and waste to energy projects.

Mr. Bange is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Diploma in International Arbitration ACIArb) and a member of the Society of Construction Law and TeCSA. He has consistently been acknowledged as a legal expert in the field of construction and engineering law in the Legal 500 and Chambers UK. Mr. Bange is fluent in Punjabi and Hindi.

Ahmed Alkotby
Senior Associate, Al Dahbashi Gray (Egypt)

Ahmed is the Head of Al Dahbashi Gray’s Egypt office (based in Alexandria) and is a Senior Associate in the firm’s Dubai office. Ahmed has 12 years’ experience in-house and for local, regional, and international law firms in Egypt and the UAE. Ahmed is regularly retained on Litigation and Arbitration matters, concerning construction, banking and insurance. He also maintains a broad commercial practice, with particular expertise in finance, corporate governance and restructuring.

Josh Kemp
Partner, Al Dahbashi Gray (Dubai)

Josh Kemp is a Construction and International Arbitration Partner in Al Dahbashi Gray’s Dubai office, and works closely with the firm’s Egypt practice. Josh has over 13 years’ experience specialising in construction, particularly on arbitration and litigation matters concerning infrastructure projects, commercial buildings and large-scale residential construction. Prior to joining the firm, he was a Partner of a leading boutique construction law firm in his native jurisdiction (Australia), where he was consistently named as a Leading Construction Litigation Lawyer. He was formerly a Senior Associate in a global law firm (Norton Rose Fulbright), as well as a London city firm.

Dr Ismail Selim
Director of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA)

Dr. Selim is the Director of the CRCICA and Secretary Treasurer of the IFCAI. He is also a board member of the AfAA, Vice President of the Cairo Branch of the CIArb, and board member of Francarbi as of 1 January 2018.

In addition to the above, he is an Accredited Mediator of the London School of Mediation (LSM) as of May 2019 and has recently been elected as a member of the UNESCO Conciliation and Good Offices Commission as of Jan 2020.

He has two Masters Degrees, in International Business Law from IDAI (1999) and in Public Administration from ENA (2001). In 2009, he earned his PhD from Université de Bourgogne.

Dr. Selim began as a judge before joining Zulficar & Partners, where he became a Partner in International Arbitration in 2013. In May 2015, he joined Nour & Selim in association with Al Tamimi & Company as Partner, Head of Dispute Resolution.

Dr Selim teaches Private International Law at IDAI, since 2011, and at several universities in Egypt. He also teaches Comparative International Arbitration Law for the Middle East Laws LLM at Paris I since early 2018. He is a tutor on the CIArb Approved Faculty List.

He is consistently appointed as Presiding arbitrator, Sole Arbitrator and Co-Arbitrator and has acted as a Counsel in various ad hoc and institutional cases under various rules.

He is enrolled on the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) panel of arbitrators.