Sidley Adds Arbitration Lawyers Tai-Heng Cheng and Simon Navarro in New York
Tai-Heng Cheng and Simon Navarro have joined Sidley Austin LLP as partner and counsel, respectively, in its New York office.
They join from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, where Cheng chaired the New York International Arbitration practice. As an arbitration practitioner, Cheng will help direct the growth and development of Sidley’s global arbitration practice, the firm said inn a release. He was previously a tenured professor of law at New York Law School and served as co-director of the Institute for Global Law, Justice and Policy. While Cheng is based in New York, he will also be spending time in Asia and Europe.
Fluent in both English and Mandarin, Cheng focuses his practice on international commercial and investor-state arbitration, having achieved nine-figure victories in high-profile matters in Asia, New York and Europe, the firm said. One of his arbitrations was Vantage v. Petrobras, an arbitration under the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, which resulted in an award of $622 million plus 15.2 percent compound interest for the client. Cheng has also represented his clients in litigation, investigations and government enforcement matters.
The firm said Navarro focuses his practice on representing clients in high-stakes, complex commercial and investment treaty arbitrations. He has experience working in Latin America and Spain and is licensed to practice law in the U.S. and Spain. Navarro works in energy, insurance, banking, mergers and acquisitions, construction and infrastructure. He is fluent in Spanish.
Cheng has served as tribunal chair or co-arbitrator in more than a dozen arbitrations before major international arbitral institutions across multiple continents, and is a member of the arbitration panels of arbitration institutions in North America, Europe and Asia.
