Kathleen Paisley is a Partner in the International Arbitration group whose practice focuses on international arbitration and mediation. Kathleen has spent 20 years practicing law in Europe, and is specialized in European-based international dispute resolution, and particularly investor-State disputes.

Kathleen was the longest serving legal advisor to the American arbitrators at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in the Netherlands. In this capacity, she acted as the legal advisor to Charles Brower, Howard H. Holtzmann, Richard Allison, and George Aldrich.

Cases in which she acted at the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal included many of the most important cases decided by the Tribunal raising matters of public international law, expropriations of banking and oil assets, and complex contract and construction disputes. She gained an extremely in-depth understanding of the application of the UNCITRAL rules to Investor-State disputes, and she has also acted as counsel in cases under the ICC, WIPO, and LCIA Rules, and before ICSID.

In addition to her expertise in international law and treaty issues, as well as European Union and US law, she also brings a detailed understanding of accounting and finance to her cases. Kathleen has passed the qualifying exam for public accountancy in the United States and has an Masters of Business Administration in finance. These qualifications allow her to handle extremely complex damages issues without the need to resort to an outside accounting firm.

In addition to her pure international arbitration practice, Kathleen also has extensive experience advising on EU competition and related antitrust issues, and particularly the intersection between intellectual property and competition. In this part of her practice, Kathleen serves clients in the high tech industries, including information technology (both software and hardware), semiconductors, mobile telecommunications, biotech, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Prior to joining White & Case, Kathleen was a partner based in the Brussels office of a major US law firm; had her own dispute resolution practice; and acted as General Counsel and Company Secretary of a London-based company.

Representative matters prior to joining White & Case include:

• Advising on an arbitration involving the expropriation and valuation of oil reserves;
• Advising on arbitrations involving the taking of banking assets and the resulting damages;
• Advising on arbitrations involving complex construction disputes and related expropriations;
• Advising on arbitrations involving military sales contracts;
• Advising on arbitrations involving contract and related disputes;
• Advising on an arbitration involving an Indian infrastructure project under the UNCITRAL Rules in Singapore;
• Advising on the mediation of two significant software contracting disputes under the WIPO Rules;
• Litigating a large software contract and IP dispute in US Federal Court; and
• Litigating the European aspects of major international patent disputes involving the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers.