Nayla Comair-Obeid

Founding Partner, Obeid & Partners

Professor Dr Comair-Obeid is the founding partner of Obeid & Partners and has headed the firm's dispute resolution practice since 1987. She is an associate member of the 3 Verulam Buildings Chambers (3VB) in London, and a member of both the Beirut Bar and the Paris Bar. 

Professor Comair-Obeid has been identified amongst the world’s foremost arbitrator practitioners in internationally renowned legal publications, referring to her as the ‘grand dame of Middle East arbitration’, and a ‘legendary lawyer [who is] ‘really prepared, knows the issues and gets it right’. 

She has been actively involved in more than 170 domestic and international investment and complex commercial arbitrations as party-appointed arbitrator, chairperson, sole arbitrator, counsel as well as being expert in Arabic, French and English. She has been engaged in mega-construction projects in the MENA region, and has developed extensive expertise and knowledge of complex construction disputes. She regularly deals with contracts based on FIDIC forms of contract with Sharia law influences and has extensive knowledge in the legal principles of the applicable substantive laws in the MENA region. Through her comparative legal expertise and technical skills, she performed with professional excellence and gained the reputation of a specialist in this industry. She was lauded as 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 institutions. She served as vice chair of the ICC from 2022 to 2024. She was a member of the ICC Executive Board from 2019 to 2024, and is also a member of the Governing Board of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA). Additionally, Professor Comair-Obeid currently serves as a trustee of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration. She was a Court Member of the London Court of International Arbitration from 2017 to 2022. Moreover, she is a Board Member of the Women’s Leadership Board of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School, among other notable roles. She also served as the President of the CIArb in 2017 and as vice chair of the Arbitration Committee of the International Bar Association from 2022 to 2024. 

Professor Dr Comair-Obeid publishes prolifically and is regularly invited to lecture at world-renowned academic institutions where her articles and scholarly publications are often cited as reference works. 

Professor Comair-Obeid is also Professor of private law and international arbitration at the Lebanese University, visiting Professor at University Panthéon-Assas Paris II, and lecturer at University of Oxford for the CIArb International Commercial Arbitration Diploma