Michael Tselentis QC, SC has practiced exclusively as an international arbitrator since 2015, and has built up a wide-ranging arbitration practice, which reflects his extensive experience as a leading commercial advocate, initially at the South African Bar (1978 to 2000), and subsequently at the English Bar (1996 to 2015).
His past and present arbitration appointments include references relating to energy and natural resources (principally oil and gas, mining and minerals, including disputes relating to joint operating agreements, offshore oilfield equity redeterminations, geophysical services, price redeterminations, mining development agreements, exploitation of mineral reserves, sales of mining tenements and metal processing ventures, and power sale agreements); a wide variety of commercial disputes (including disputes relating to property developments, purchase and sale contracts, agency, distribution/franchising, joint ventures, shareholder disputes, hedge fund management and valuation, accounting and tax issues, and contractual disputes generally); investment disputes (with a focus on mining investments in African countries); shipping (including shipbuilding, FPSO, drill rig, bill of lading and charter-party disputes); commodity trading and international sale of goods; insurance; and construction and engineering (including disputes relating to hydro-electric schemes, sub-sea drilling and pipeline installation, port dredging, tidal defences, water reticulation works and road construction contracts).
He has been appointed in over 100 references as Presiding Arbitrator, Tribunal Member and Sole Arbitrator, principally (though by no means exclusively) in ICC, LCIA, PCA, SIAC, LMAA, and ad hoc arbitrations under the UNCITRAL rules. His appointments have involved a wide variety of governing laws, including English, French, Singaporean, Netherlands, Western Australian, Indonesian, Qatari, Kenyan, Trinidad and Tobago, South African, Swazi, Lesotho, Angolan, Tanzanian, Zambian, Nigerian and international law. Arbitral seats have included London, Paris, Geneva, Singapore, Hong Kong, DIFC, Cyprus, Lagos, Dar Es Salaam, Mauritius and Johannesburg.
Although the main focus of his practice as a Barrister and Arbitrator since 2000 has been the law of England and Wales, he also has considerable expertise of civil law systems, by reason of his South African law degrees and his practice at the South African Bar before moving to London. In the civil-law context, he has been involved in cases which have raised issues of French, Netherlands, Romanian, Qatari, Russian, Azeri, Kazakh, Finnish, Thai, Indonesian, South African, Swazi, Lesotho and Namibian law.
He is a Chartered Arbitrator (UK) (2008), and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK), the Singapore Institute of Arbitrators, the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, and the Association of Arbitrators of Southern Africa. He is also a member of ICCA, the ICC (UK), the LCIA, the LMAA (supporting member), and the Baltic Exchange.
His international panel memberships are listed in the "Arbitration Accreditations" link below, and include the ICDR's Energy Arbitrators' List, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators' Presidential Panel, and the international arbitration panels of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (ACICA), and the BVI International Arbitration Centre (BVI IAC).
He holds the B.A. and LL.B. degrees from the University of Cape Town (1971), and the B.C.L. degree from the University of Oxford (1975), which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar. He was admitted as an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa in 1978 and was appointed Senior Counsel in South Africa in 1989. He practised at the Johannesburg Bar where he was a leading commercial Silk, with a specialisation in mining law, from 1978 to 1996 before relocating his practice to London. While in practice at the Johannesburg Bar (as junior counsel and subsequently as Senior Counsel) he held general retainers from Anglo American Corporation and De Beers Corporation and their subsidiary and associated companies. He served as an Acting Judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa in April-June 1992, and was Chairman of the Johannesburg Bar in 1993-1994.
He was called to the Bar of England and Wales by Gray's Inn in November 1995, and was appointed Queen's Counsel in April 2003. He was elected a Bencher of Gray's Inn in 2008.
