Personal bio
Soraya Corm-Bakhos is an experienced disputes lawyer and arbitration practitioner with 20 years’ experience established in the UAE since 2008. Prior to joining Watson Farley & Williams (Middle East) LLP as Counsel, she practiced in the Dispute Resolution teams of Baker McKenzie Habib Al Mulla and DWF (Middle East) LLP.
Before coming to the UAE, she practised in Paris in the law firm of J.P. Karsenty & Associés where she gained extensive experience advising on all types of civil, commercial and corporate transactions and representing clients before the French Courts in a variety of commercial disputes.
Soraya has wide-ranging experience in all types of international commercial arbitrations, having acted as advising counsel under major institutional arbitration rules (including ICC, LCIA, SCC, former DIFC-LCIA, CRCICA and DIAC) and ad hoc in arbitrations seated in Europe and the Middle East in relation to a wide variety of industry sectors, including energy, transport, real estate/construction, oil & gas and banking and finance.
Soraya is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and regularly sits as arbitrator (sole arbitrator, co-arbitrator and chair) in arbitrations mainly related to real estate, construction, sale and purchase disputes and commercial disputes.
Soraya is fluent in English and French and has good knowledge of Arabic. She has authored numerous publications on middle eastern arbitration related topics.