the team

Consultants to RobertKnutson.com

The people below are all independent consultants associated to varying degrees with Robert Knutson.

All our consultants with their specialised skills are available for secondments or to be outsourced for projects from a half day to several months. Arrangements need to be discussed, such as access to other team members for advice, and of course the daily rate would be much lower than on a normal piece of advice sourced directly through us.

• Grace Fattal
• Rohan Shorland
• Sergia Carias Phillips
• Eric Eggink
• Marwan Sakr
• Corinna Osinski
• Robert Jacobs

Grace Fattal

Grace Fattal is a Lebanese-Armenian student (with a French passport) currently pursuing a master of laws at SOAS University of London. She is fluent in French, English, Armenian and Arabic, all of which are very helpful for our cases in the Middle East for clients such as BP Middle East and Pakistan.

At the School of International Arbitration, Queen Mary University of London, she is specializing in: International and comparative commercial arbitration, International trade law and International and comparative law of trade marks, designs and unfair competition. At SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), She is specializing in Arab Comparative commercial law which consists of the commercial laws of the Arab countries and an introduction to the systems of domestic arbitration in middle eastern jurisdictions.

She is particularly passionate about arbitration and comparative law. She studied law as an undergraduate at the Saint Joseph University in Beirut from 2000-2004 where she graduated with a distinction.
Email: gracefattal@robertknutson.com

Rohan Shorland

Rohan, our consultant, is a qualified Engineer and Mediator who has spent much of his professional life as a Project Manager on major infrastructure projects around the World. These include railroads in South Africa, a nuclear power station in China, metro systems in Singapore and Lyons, and several kilometres of undersea TBM drives in the SSDS as well as one of the major bridges in Hong Kong. In 1996 Rohan left full-time employment in Paris to work as a Mediator and arbitrator.

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Sergia Carias Phillips

After working in a New York law firm (White and Case), Sergia specialized in arbitration whilst working at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris. She was involved with the preparation and administration of more than 150 international commercial arbitration files submitted to the ICC Court. Among these, she dealt with cases involving Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American parties and arbitrators.

Whilst in Mexico, she was Secretary General of the Arbitration Center of Mexico (CAM). She was also involved in a project of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) resulting in a report on mediation and arbitration institutions in North America, Europe and Latin America.

Recently, she has drafted documents in major international arbitrations such as Terms of Reference, Procedural Orders and Directions and narrative parts of draft partial and final awards. These arbitrations have been in areas such as joint ventures, construction, merger and acquisitions, telecommunications, and sale/purchase agreements. They have been conducted under ICC, LCIA and UNCITRAL Rules.

Sergia holds a Masters in Law (LL.M.) from Columbia University School of Law in New York, U.S.A. She has a graduate degree in International Law and a law degree with specialty in Business Law with honours from the University of Paris, France. She is fluent in Spanish, French and English.

Sergia has British and Honduran citizenship and lives in Bristol. She is married and has two children.

Eric Eggink

Eric is a qualified Dutch lawyer and a resident of The Netherlands.  We are happy to suggest he may be either your Counsel, Arbitrator, Dispute Adjudication Board member or advisor on specific issues.

After twelve years in a general law practice he changed to the construction industry in 1990, where as in-house legal counsel to Ballast Nedam Dredging he was involved with numerous large infra structure projects, including the site preparation contract for Chek Lap Kok Airport Hong Kong, a huge reclamation project of the era. As Company Secretary he was also responsible for mergers and acquisitions and the company’s legal structure.

In late 1993 Eric relocated to the international construction division of Ballast Nedam where he was Chief Legal Counsel and Company Secretary and as such involved in the many large international infrastructure projects, sports and leisure projects, etc. that Ballast Nedam undertook at that time. He was also still responsible for mergers and acquisitions and the division’s legal structure.

In 1999 Eric was engaged as the coordinating legal counsel for the construction of the High Speed Rail Link (Channel Tunnel Rail) between Amsterdam and Brussels on the contractors’ side.

Eric has been a member of the Working Group on Contract Conditions of the European International Contractors (EIC) association since 1993 and was the co-author of the EIC Contractor’s Guides to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract as well as the EIC Blue Book on Sustainable Procurement.

He also was deeply involved the ICC’s committee on drafting the ICC’s Model Major Project Turnkey Contract.

Since 2001 ERIC has been the Managing Director of The Netherlands Association of International Contractors (NABU). He devotes the rest of his time to Dispute Resolution as a dispute board member or as an Arbitrator. He has published regularly both in The Netherlands and abroad on several topics in construction law. disputes. He has been concerned with arbitrations involving England, Iran, America, Lebanon. Egypt and the USA, amongst other places.

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Marwan Sakr

Marwan Sakr is a Lebanese attorney trained in the civil law, with special expertise in banking and financial law, corporate law, international contracts, economic law and dispute resolution, as well as related public law issues.

Marwan has been called to bar in Beirut (1988) and Paris (2006), he  practice law representing major Lebanese and international clients on matters involving banking, insurance, financial markets, taxation, foreign investments, commercial and corporate law, international construction contracts and telecom law. He represents these clients both as an advisor and in litigations and arbitration proceedings under various jurisdictions and arbitration rules (ICC, CRCICA, LAC, UNCITRAL). He has been appointed as member of ad hoc arbitration panels in construction disputes. Marwan is one of the two managing partners of Hennaoui & Sakr a law firm in Beirut having also a practice in Saudi Arabia and an organic cooperation agreement with a well established business law firm in Paris.

Marwan regularly provides legal support and advice to Lebanese ministries and governmental bodies. He advised the Lebanese Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank of Lebanon, the Ministry of Administrative Reform and to the Association of Banks of Lebanon, in connection with the drafting of several banking, financial, tax and public finance laws, and several other projects.

He has a substantial university teaching experience in Commercial law, Financial Engineering law as well as International Contracts law and disputes resolution (Saint Joseph University, Beirut). He has represented Lebanon in numerous meetings, seminars and conferences devoted to these issues and to other legal topics. He has also extensively published in these topics and in other legal and public subjects.

Marwan studied law at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, the Lebanese University and the University of Toulouse 1 – France, he also holds several post-graduate certificates and diplomas in international arbitration law. He is writing a PhD thesis in Toulouse on the Lebanese Bank Secrecy system versus the new international banking and financial regulations - A comparative study with French and other European systems.

He is a member of the IBA, LCIA (YIAG), ASA , CIArb, the European Association of Banking & Financial Law (Association Européenne de Droit Bancaire et Financier - AEDBF) and an Associate of the Center for International Legal Studies (CILS).

Marwan is fluent in English; French and Arabic (Mother tongue).

Corinna Osinski

Corinna Osinski was born in 1958 in Wiesbaden until 1974 lived in Paris, New York and Buenos Aires. She studied jurisprudence and did her legal training in Munich. After conclusion of the second state examination Mrs. Osinski took the position of host Country Legal Advisor with American Ministry of Justice, which operated a branch office in Munich for the co-ordination of disputes in which the U.S. government was involved with in Europe. In the 1995 Mrs. Osinski transferred to Heilit+Woerner building AG (formerly part of the Walter group). In 1997 Mrs. Osinski moved to Leipzig and became active at the Central German steel structure GmbH as a counsel. After fusion of this enterprise with the steel structure Plauen GmbH she was busy from 2000 there as principal in the legal department, which she became head of in 1998. In 2003 she created the kanzlei Corinna Osinski - attorneys in Leipzig.

Mrs. Osinski is specialized on the area of the building and legislation on real estate. She has from 2000 been chairman of the legal committee of the German steel association. A further activity emphasis is in international law. Mrs. Osinski speaks fluent English, French and Spanish. She is a member of the German institution for arbitration (DIS) as well as the Chartered of institutes of Arbitrators.

Robert Jacobs

Bobbie works part-time as a para-legal and wishes to join Robert Knutson as a trainee after he finishes the CLP

• Grace Fattal
• Rohan Shorland
• Sergia Carias Phillips
• Eric Eggink
• Marwan Sakr
• Corinna Osinski
• Robert Jacobs