Our team

Thomas Clay, agrégé des Facultés de droit, is a full professor at the Sorbonne Law School (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), in charge of international arbitration law and alternative dispute resolution. In particular, he founded Sorbonne Arbitrage, a structure bringing together the Sorbonne's arbitration law activities.

Before that, he founded the Arbitration and Business Law Master’s degree known as the “MACI”, a genuine talent incubator, at the University of Versailles, which he directed for twelve years. He was also Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Law at this University.

Enjoying a strong and recognized expertise in domestic, international and investment arbitration, he has participated in more than a hundred arbitration proceedings, as chairman, sole arbitrator or co-arbitrator. From domestic to international, to ad hoc or institutional arbitrations, Professor Thomas Clay has intervened in a wide range of sectors, including energy, telecommunications, construction, distribution, commercial law, sports law, labor law and others, under the aegis of many different arbitration centers, including the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) and the Stockholm Chamber of Arbitration (SCC), the Permanent Court of Arbitration of The Hague (PCA), the Arbitration Chamber of Milan (CAM), the OHADA Common Court of Justice and Arbitration, the Court of Arbitration for Sport of Lausanne (CAS), the Mediation and Arbitration Centre of Paris (CMAP), the International Arbitration Chamber of Paris, etc. He was notably appointed by France as arbitrator in the first ICSID arbitration brought against France, and currently sits on other ICSID arbitral tribunals.

He has also developed specific expertise in sports law. He is on the list of arbitrators for the CAS and the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF).

Member of the Paris Bar, Professor Thomas Clay advises and represents States, companies and investors before arbitral tribunals and States’ courts.

Thomas Clay works in French, English, Spanish and Italian.

Maître Taha Zahedi Vafa is specialized in domestic and international arbitration and litigation. He also advises on international contract law matters and international sanctions.

Maître Taha Zahedi Vafa regularly represents Middle Eastern and Iranian companies, both State-owned and private, in complex international disputes before arbitral tribunals and courts.

He has intervened in numerous arbitration proceedings under the aegis of various arbitration centers, such as the International Chamber of Commerce, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the Common Court of Justice and Arbitration of the OHADA, and ad hoc tribunals. In addition to his litigation, he also conducts negotiations.

Taha Zahedi Vafa intervenes in a wide range of sectors, including banking, energy, telecommunications, construction, distribution, international trade and mining.

Taha Zahedi Vafa teaches French Civil Procedure and Arbitration Law at the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Taha Zahedi Vafa works in three languages: French, English and Farsi.

Lawyer by profession, André Vallini was parliamentary assistant to Gisèle Halimi when she was elected Member of Parliament for Isère in 1981.

Elected Mayor of Tullins-Fures, his home town, from 1986 to 2001, André Vallini was also a regional councillor for Rhône-Alpes from 1986 to 1992.

In 1992, André Vallini became a departmental councillor for Isère, a position he still holds following his re-election in 2021. He also presided over the Isère department from 2001 to 2015.

While a member of parliament for Isère, André Vallini was a member of the Law Commission, where he was rapporteur for several laws on justice. He was also chairman of the parliamentary commission on the Outreau affair, and speaker for the Socialist group on revisions to the Constitution at the parliamentary congress in Versailles in 2008.

In September 2011, André Vallini was elected Senator for Isère for the first time. In his second term as Senator, in September 2017, André Vallini was a member of the Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Committee. Within this commission, André Vallini was rapporteur each year for the budget for cultural diplomacy and influence. He was also responsible for a report on the Europe of Defense and a report on the abolition of the diplomatic corps.

In 2014, André Vallini joined the Government. He successively held three ministerial posts: Secretary of State in charge of Territorial Reform, then Secretary of State for Cooperation, Development and Francophony, and finally Secretary of State, in charge of Relations with Parliament.

André Vallini was also Vice-Chairman of the French delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from 2020 to 2023 in Strasbourg, where he sat on behalf of the Senate.

At the Council of Europe, André Vallini was a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights. During his term of office as a senator, André Vallini was vice-president of the French section of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF).

Patricio Grané focuses his practice on investment treaty and international commercial arbitration in a broad range of economic sectors, including financial services, energy, mining and metals, construction, agribusiness, transportation, and hospitality.

His experience includes acting for sovereign and corporate clients in more than twenty high profile international arbitration proceedings under the ICSID, ICC, and the UNCITRAL Rules, involving parties from Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. He also has experience assisting sole arbitrators and Arbitral Tribunals.

In addition, Patricio Grané has experience in complex and high-stakes cross-border litigation involving financial fraud.

Prior to joining the firm, Patricio Grané acquired experience within the international arbitration practice groups of leading law firms in Geneva and Paris and worked for several years as an associate in the Buenos Aires office of a boutique international law firm.

Patricio Grané also served as a judicial law clerk at the Federal Court of Appeals of Buenos Aires and as Legal Advisor at the Ministry of Finance of Argentina, where he acquired extensive experience in public, administrative, and regulatory law.

Patricio Grané is admitted to practice in Buenos Aires and holds an LLM in International Dispute Settlement (MIDS) from the Geneva Graduate Institute and the University of Geneva.

Patricio Grané works in four languages: English, Spanish, Italian and French.

Smahane Akhouad is a University lecturer in Private Law at the University of Versailles (Paris Saclay), where she teaches the law of contracts and torts, business law and domestic and international arbitration law within the Master in Arbitration & International Commerce, known as "MACI". She is also involved in the Arbitration Law degree program at the University of Montpellier.

She advises the firm on questions related to international arbitration, French and foreign private law in arbitration proceedings where the firm is appointed as counsel. She also acts as counsel in procedures before the Paris Court of Appeals to set aside arbitral awards.

She has published numerous reference articles on arbitration law.

Smahane Akhouad works in French, English, Arabic and Spanish.

Inaya Olleik is a jurist at Clay Arbitration and is pursuing a PhD in arbitration and insolvency proceedings.

Inaya Olleik previously worked in the arbitration and litigation departments of several international law firms in Paris.

She has been involved in proceedings under the aegis of various arbitration centers, including the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), in cases involving parties from Europe and the Middle East.

Inaya Olleik works in French, English and Arabic.
‍

Shirin Nishanova is a lawyer in charge of administrative and financial management, logistics, press relations and human resources.

In general, she organizes life in the Clay Arbitration offices, which occupy Picasso's former studio in Paris. She is the first point of contact for any initial contact with Clay Arbitration.

Shirin Nishanova works in four languages: French, English, Russian and German.