King & Wood Mallesons
KWM is a firm born in Asia, underpinned by world class capability. With over 2000 lawyers in 30 global locations, KWM draws from their Western and Eastern perspectives to deliver incisive counsel.
KWM is focused on their clients – people and organisations with distinctive ambitions and challenges, and is driven to understand their clients’ needs, solve their problems and unearth the right opportunities. Whether their clients are expanding globally or strengthening locally, KWM strives to provide a service which is dynamic, insightful, and tailored.
In the Middle East KWM is headquartered in Dubai, and specialises in complex, high value, multi-jurisdictional dispute resolution, with extensive experience across all aspect of the dispute resolution process, including: arbitration, common law court litigation, and coordinating onshore court processes. KWM has specialist expertise across a wide range of sectors, and advises on, amongst other things: fraud claims, finance disputes, distribution agreement disputes, construction and engineering disputes, and insurance disputes. KWM is highly ranked in all the major legal directories and has a track record of acting on many of the region’s most prominent disputes and settlements.
Joanne Strain
Managing Partner
Joanne is an English law qualified solicitor with over sixteen years of dispute resolution experience, with a particular focus on international commercial arbitration and DIFC litigation, including disputes with a significant cross-border element. Joanne has been permanently based in the Middle East for over 10 years.
Joanne advises clients on a wide range of financial and commercial disputes, including complex joint venture and shareholder arrangements, with particular expertise in disputes emerging from large scale Middle Eastern projects and financial settlements, acting for major corporates, financial institutions and high net worth individuals.
Joanne is well experienced in executing dispute resolution strategies under all of the major arbitral institutional rules, and before English common law courts, including the Courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre and the Dubai World Tribunal. Joanne works closely with regional experts to coordinate dispute resolution issues arising before the UAE Courts and in the wider GCC.
Joanne regularly sits as both a sole and co-arbitrator, including with respect to arbitrations administered by the ICC, LCIA and DIFC-LCIA.
Joanne is consistently ranked by The Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners Global directories and praised for her work in International Arbitration and DIFC Litigation.
Joanne is listed in the Construction Week Power 100 list, 2021 and 2022.
Daniel Xu
Partner
Daniel is a construction and dispute resolution specialist based in Dubai. He is a Singapore qualified lawyer and also holds full rights of audience at the DIFC Courts. Daniel is listed as an accredited arbitrator on the panel of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) and sits as arbitrator for DIFC-LCIA.
Daniel focuses on international arbitration and cross border dispute resolution such as construction, engineering and infrastructure related disputes. He also has extensive experience advising international contractors and developers on issues regarding project risk management and dispute avoidance.
He has significant experience representing governments, state owned entities, Fortune 500 companies and major corporations across the Asia Pacific and Middle East in connection with a broad range of contentious and non-contentious matters. Legal 500 mentions Daniel as “primarily notable for construction disputes” who “fills a niche in the market with his Mandarin language abilities and experience working in international firms, meaning he has carved out a strong following of Chinese inbound work into the Middle East” and for his ability to “combine English-language advocacy and Mandarin with clients”
Daniel is identified by Thomson Reuters’ Asian Legal Business (ALB) as one of 50 MENA Super lawyers in its
2021 inaugural list and Daniel is also shortlisted as one of the finalists for Young Lawyer of the Year in ALB’s inaugural Middle East Law Awards 2021.
Having lived in the Middle East since 2010, Daniel is familiar with the culture and market conditions unique to this part of the world. He is recognized in various publications as a leading lawyer in trends and matters relating to construction disputes.
Daniel’s working languages are English and Chinese.
Parnika Chaturvedi
Partner
Parnika is a tri-qualified dispute resolution specialist with expertise in international commercial arbitration and litigation, often in disputes with a cross border element and proceedings in different jurisdictions. She has over 12 years of experience in devising and executing complex dispute resolution strategies before Courts and Tribunals to achieve the best possible results for her clients.
Parnika has represented clients in a wide range of financial, corporate, and commercial disputes across various sectors.
Parnika has extensive experience conducting arbitrations under various institutional rules, including the LCIA, ICC, DIAC, QICCA and HKIAC rules.
Parnika also has substantial experience before the DIFC Courts and the Courts of England and Wales and works with regional experts on disputes before the UAE Courts and across GCC.
Parnika is described as “exceptionally talented … astute, extraordinarily hard-working and brilliant at problem solving”, “master of any case, document or situation put before her” and "is willing to go the extra mile for clients” (Chambers & Partners 2022 and Legal 500 2022). Parnika is also ranked in the Legal 500 Arbitration Power List Middle East.
