Dania Fahs
Senior ADR practitioner & Lawyer

Dania is a senior ADR practitioner, lawyer, visiting university lecturer with more than two decades of experience in dispute resolution and transactional law across various domains. She has a mixed experience in private practice, multinationals and international institution. 

Dania's expertise extends to areas crucial to disputes resolution and ADR such as commercial contracts, intellectual property, and technology transfer. She has a profound understanding of business operations and cross border transactions. Throughout her career, Dania has been instrumental in advising boards on legal and strategic matters, conducting risk assessments, and evaluating the long-term implications of legal decisions on overall business strategy. 

Among her accomplishments, Dania served as the Regional Director of MENA at the ICC International Court of Arbitration, where she established and managed the ICC MENA regional office, actively promoting and advancing arbitration services across the region while attending the ICC International courts sessions and participating to the ICC commission task forces. Additionally, her role as Head of Legal for Levant and Yemen at BAT, where she sat on the leadership team, optimised business models and provided full fledge in house counsel support, further underscored her expertise in contentious related matters under national and local laws. During her tenure as Senior Legal Counsel at Oracle, a leading tech company, Dania supported multiple Lines of Business in the MENA and Gulf regions, emphasising her expertise in cross-border negotiations and transactions. 

Sector Expertise  

• Commercial Dispute Resolution

• Joint-Ventures, Mergers & Acquisitions and Shareholder Disputes 

• IP & Technology, Renewable Energy

• Integrative Negotiation, Arbitration and Mediation

Commercial Dispute Resolution 

Dania has multi-cultural background with experience in both civil and common law matters. She has advised international clients in highly complex contentious matters and handled complex and high value matters relating to prominent international clients across various industries (luxury,  automotive, software, consumer products, hospitality, energy, electrical equipment, IT, music,  pharmaceutical and healthcare). She provided strategic advice on cross-border litigation and unlawful  competition cases, termination of licensing distribution, franchise, commercial agency agreements  etc. 

She is well versed in French, UAE and Lebanese laws as well as in the legal systems of the MENA  jurisdictions. She has extensive knowledge in US business law and is familiar with Canadian law.  She contributes as a visiting lecturer to the AUB (American University of Beirut) Certificate in  International Arbitration 

Joint-Ventures, Mergers & Acquisitions and Shareholder Disputes  

Dania has first-hand experience in matters relating to shareholders and share sales agreements, joint venture agreements, settlement agreements. She has a profound understanding of the economics and laws of mergers and acquisitions, and she is certified from the London School of Economics (LSE). 

IP & Technology, Media and Telecommunications 

Dania’s IP experience in private practice as counsel includes reviewing and drafting commercial agreements (franchising, distributorship, commercial agency, and representation agreements), and IP-focused agreements (licensing and assignments, multimedia, and music production agreements). 

She also has experience in technology and intellectual property aspects of corporate and commercial transactions, including employment and consultancy arrangements, law compliance in respect of diverse technology-related issues, including data protection, traditional and new-media content production, commissioning arrangements, agreements with talent, ownership and copyright assignment, events and sponsorship related advisory. Dania has also handled contentious intellectual property matters, including allegations of copyright and trademark infringement, and noncompliance with local regulatory requirements. 

She intervenes and speaks about how the new technologies (AI, NFTs…) are impacting and reshaping IP law. She is a visiting lecturer in IP law at Saint Joseph University - Dubai (where she teaches the module of “ The contractual commercialisation of IP rights”).

Mediation & Negotiation  

Dania is a CEDR-accredited mediator and assists parties with amicably resolving their disputes. 

She serves as expert and assessor in international mediation competitions. 

Her business acumen and her negotiation and mediation skills have solidified her reputation for

resolving intricate legal issues and devising innovative solutions, particularly in international multi

cultural transactions. She received from INSEAD the integrative negotiator award, and is the Vice

Chair of the IBA mediation committee

Academic & Professional Qualifications 

Education  

• EMBA: INSEAD- UAE /France / Singapore, Global Executive Mba (2017 – 2018)

• PhD, contractual law, University Montpellier I France – Thesis Defense Summa Cum Laude (2003-2007).  

• Masters in Intellectual Property Law 2001-2002

• Bachelor of Law, Filière Francophone De Droit –Lebanese University- French section – with honours and French government scholarship (1997-2001)

• Lebanese American University Beirut-Lebanon, Parallel Major: Bs, Economics – 65 Credits Completed -(Interruption due to Masters studies in France) (1999-2001)

Past Academic Activities  

• American University of Beirut, Lebanon: Visiting Lecturer in US Business Law 2011-2014

• La Sagesse University, Beirut, Lebanon, Lecturer in Law of IP and New Technologies 2011 2013

• University of Montreal, Canada, Micro Programme (15 Credits) Jan-May 2009, New Technologies and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)

• Attended Mediation Proceedings at the Superior Court of Quebec presided by The Honourable Louis-Paul Cullen - Feb 2009 Montreal, Canada

Professional Experience 

• ICC International Court of Arbitration, Regional Director MENA June 2021 – July 2023 /Deputy Regional Director MENA March 2018 – June 2021

• BAT – British American Tobacco Dubai, UAE, Head of Legal Levant and Yemen - July 2016 – Feb 2018

• Oracle Corporation Dubai, UAE, Senior Legal Counsel March 2015 – June 2016

• Al Tamimi Law Firm Dubai, UAE, Senior Associate 2013 – 2015

• Berti Law Firm Beirut, Lebanon, Intern- Associate 2003 – 2008 / Senior Associate- Partner 2009 – 2013

Professional Associations & Recognitions 

Certifications

• CEDR Mediator Accreditation - London- 2019

• LSE: The laws and economics of M&As

• Trainer of Trainees, WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) -2010 Professional Memberships

• Beirut Bar Association

• Member of the Court of Arbitration of the LIAC- BBA

• England and Wales Solicitor Qualification SQE 1, SQE2 in progress

• Certified and enlisted on WIPO directory for Mediators and Arbitrators 

• AIPPI, APPIMAF (Association for the Protection of Industrial Property in the Middle East and North Africa).

•  Member of Arbitral Women

•   IBA: Vice Chair - Mediation committee, Member - Arbitration and IP committees

Some Publications, Articles & Thought Leadership  

• Le contrat de transfert de Know How : LexisNexis – Coll Bibliotheque de droit de l’entreprise Cited in Droit de la Propriete Industrielle, Azema, Galloux, Dalloz-Coll. Precis.

• ICC Dispute Resolution Bulletin 2020, Issue 3: Overview of the Dispute Resolution Panoroma and Impact of the COVID -19 Pandemic

• ICC Dispute Resolution Bulletin 2022, Issue 3: Report on the ICC MENA Conference on International Arbitration: Rethinking Dispute Resolution in an Ever-Changing World – coauthored with Rana Kahwagi.

Languages:

French (Bilingual), English (Fluent), Spanish (Proficient), Arabic (Native)