Kathryn Frances Khamsi

Kathryn, a partner in the Paris office, acts for corporate clients and States in all types of disputes. She is particularly sought after in high value disputes that raise complex issues of fact and law.

Clients have commended Kathryn’s “grasp of the technical detail, and her ability to identify and articulate game changing arguments”. She is recommended by Chambers , Lexology Index , and The Legal 500 .

Kathryn also sits as arbitrator, and was recently appointed to the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators, and will serve a six-year term. She has lectured and published extensively on questions of international arbitration and public international law, including most recently on the subject of emissions trading schemes.

Prior to entering private practice, Kathryn was a Legal Advisor to the Prime Minister of East Timor (Timor-Leste), based in East Timor, coordinating East Timor’s negotiations with Australia over maritime boundaries and the drafting of a new regime for petroleum investments. Kathryn has also worked with the International Development Law Organization in Kabul, Afghanistan, and with Columbia Law School and the Carter Center in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Kathryn, who speaks English and French, is admitted in Paris, New York, and Ontario. She holds an A.B from Harvard, LLB and BCL degrees from McGill, and an LLM from Columbia (where she was a James Kent Scholar).

Representing three ENI subsidiaries in an ICSID arbitration against the Federal Republic of Nigeria arising out the State’s refusal to grant an oil mining license to allow production to proceed in Nigeria’s deep offshore. The case involves allegations of corruption. $2.5 billion is at stake