Professor Dr. Nayla Comair-Obeid
Practice Overview
Professor Dr. Nayla Comair-Obeid was elected as an Associate Member of 3VB in 2019. Prof. Comair-Obeid is the founding member of Obeid & Partners, one of the leading law firms in Lebanon and the Middle East, with its headquarters in Beirut. She has repeatedly been recognized as one of the world’s leading business lawyers by the Who’s Who Legal Guides. She specializes in international business law and Middle Eastern legislation, and is often called upon as a legal expert on numerous aspects of Lebanese law in foreign courts and arbitral proceedings. She is a member of both the Beirut Bar and Paris Bar.
Prof. Comair-Obeid obtained a PhD in Business Law from the University Paris II, Panthéon-Assas (1994), a D.E.A. in Business Law (1980), and a Master’s Degree in Lebanese and French Law from St. Joseph University (Lebanon)/Lyon II Jean Moulin University (France).
Prof. Comair-Obeid has taught as professor of international commercial arbitration at the Lebanese University, University of Pantheon-Assas Paris II, and as lecturer for the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, University of Oxford. Prof. 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. Of particular note is her book The Law of Business Contracts in the Middle East (Kluwer Law).
Throughout her career, Prof. Comair-Obeid has held and continues to hold pre-eminent positions in many of the major international legal institutions. As of 2022, she is the Vice-Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC); Vice-Chair of the arbitration committee in the International Bar Association (IBA); a member of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA) Governing Board; Companion of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb); member of China’s International Commercial Expert Committee of the Supreme People’s Court; member of the LCIA Court in London, and Trustee of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration Board of Trustees (CRCICA). She also sits on the ICSID panel of arbitrators and conciliators. Prof. Comair-Obeid has acted as the President of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) (2017) and was a former Chair of the Institute’s Board of Trustees. She is also a former vice chair of the arbitration committee in the International Bar Association and former commissioner of the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) in Geneva.
Prof. Comair-Obeid is also Board Member of Women's Leadership Board (WLB) of the Women and Public Policy Program (WAPPP) at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Prof. Comair-Obeid has extensive transactional and trial experience. She has been and continues to be involved in some of the most significant mandates and cross-border contentious and non-contentious matters in the region, including the largest cases currently pending before the Lebanese courts. She has noteworthy expertise in state contracts and matters such as the “Negotiation, Drafting, Managing of International Contracts and Conflict Resolution in the Middle East”, a topic she frequently addresses at the International Court of Arbitration in Paris. Prof. Comair-Obeid is recognized as being "pre-eminent in her field", with the Who’s Who Legal describing her as having: “an immense practice spanning 30 years" and is noted as “an absolutely brilliant advocate who is as relentless in serving her clients as any lawyer I’ve ever met”.
Prof. Comair-Obeid has been actively involved in more than 170 international commercial and investment arbitrations as well as domestic arbitrations as party-appointed arbitrator, chairperson, sole arbitrator, counsel, and expert in Arabic, French and English language.
