Originally from Journal of Damages in International Arbitration

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MR. WALCK: Good morning. Thank you all for coming. I’m Rory Walck, a partner at Global Financial Analytics here in the Washington area.

I want to thank Juris for drafting me to be your initial spokesperson here, and I want to thank our sponsors.  We have a number of them this year:  Cornerstone Research; several law firms: Milbank, Skadden, Curtis, Crowell & Moring, Dechert, Foley Hoag, King & Spalding; and then some expert firms as well: Brattle, Compass Lexecon. And, finally, the Vienna International Arbitration Center has provided some cooperation and support as well.  We’re delighted with all of our sponsors, and we thank you very much for that.

I’d like to introduce first our co chairs, the people who really did the heavy lifting on getting this conference together. Christina Beharry is an attorney with the Foley Hoag office here locally, specializing in international public law, both investment treaty and commercial matters, and she has been working with James Searby, a senior managing director at FTI, who relocated to this area just over a year ago from the Asia Pacific region. They’re both very experienced people, and they have done a yeoman’s job of putting together a very interesting, we hope, day for you today.

The first order of business is to introduce someone who will be known to most of you, Professor Juan Fernández Armesto, professional arbitrator, former President of the Spanish Securities and Exchange Commission, partner at Uria & Menéndez  and we could go on and on and on. He’s acted as an arbitrator in dozens and dozens of commercial arbitrations in a wide variety of areas, and has a particular expertise in construction projects, on infrastructure projects, those big things that give so many of us something to work on.

So, without any further ado, Professor Armesto, you have the floor.

PROFESSOR FERNÁNDEZ-ARMESTO:  Thank you.