The global market for international arbitration is split by a structural geographic divide: major law firms concentrate practice leadership where claims are litigated, while the underlying disputes originate in regional operating markets.
While Washington and London hold the institutional depth to manage formal arbitrations (the “second half” of a dispute), local operational markets bear the friction where disputes first arise (the “first half”). As a result, early-stage risk recognition and dispute origination remain unassigned advisory spaces in major global firms.
The Concentration of Arbitral Leadership
When Willkie Farr & Gallagher restructured its international arbitration leadership, it named Washington-based Kristen Young as global co-chair alongside Paris-based Grégoire Bertrou, while appointing Dharshini Prasad as London practice chair.
- Institutional Alignment: Young’s practice centers on multi-billion-dollar investor-state arbitrations, including a $2.7 billion ICSID claim against Mexico and a $4.4 billion ICSID claim against Panama. Washington remains the natural operational center for this work because ICSID is headquartered there.
- Talent Migration: Prasad’s career illustrates how regional expertise consolidates in Western hubs. After helping draft the Singapore International Arbitration Centre’s (SIAC) 2016 arbitration rules and 2017 investment rules in Asia, her practice migrated to London to lead the firm’s regional capability from the UK.
Consolidating treaty and major commercial arbitration leadership in Washington and London is commercially sound. Investor-state and high-value arbitrations run under standardised
procedural rules before a narrow set of international institutions. Depth at the center is more valuable than physical proximity to any single dispute.
Where Disputes Originate
In contrast, cross-border commercial disputes emerge far from traditional arbitral centers.
The litigation in Nayara Energy v. SAP India before the Delhi High Court demonstrates how these matters begin:
- The Entity: An Indian oil refinery (49% owned by Russia’s Rosneft) listed under EU sanctions.
- The Contract: An enterprise software agreement signed with the Indian subsidiary of a German technology parent, governed explicitly by Indian substantive law.
- The Operational Trigger: A sudden service suspension executed by the local vendor during a critical operational window.
The central legal issue: whether foreign extraterritorial sanctions give a domestic subsidiary the right to suspend performance under local contract law. The issue was not framed first in London or Washington. It emerged on the ground as a local operational failure.
The First Half vs. The Second Half
The structural gap in international practice lies in the sequence of how disputes evolve:
- The Second Half (Dispute Management): Washington and London firms excel at running formal arbitrations once a dispute is fully crystallised , assigned a tribunal, and valued in the hundreds of millions.
- The First Half (Dispute Origin): Disputes rarely arrive labeled as international arbitrations. They arrive as local service outages, supply chain disruptions, or tax-deadline software blackouts.
By the time a matter reaches an arbitral tribunal in London or Washington, the decisive facts have already occurred such as local contract notices, choice-of-law selections, and emergency injunction applications.
The Market Opportunity
Global law firms continue to hire and allocate capital for the second half of disputes. However, the early-stage capability involves recognising in real time that a local contract breach involves parent-level compliance rules, choice-of-law conflicts, and potential treaty remedies. And this capability remains unassigned.
For Tier-1 regional firms and independent domestic practices in growth markets, this structural gap presents a clear origination opportunity: capturing high-value cross-border disputes at the point of origin before they are exported to international arbitral centers.
Lawfinity Solutions advises international law firms on cross-border legal market positioning. If the India corridor is a live question for your firm, we would be interested in a conversation. Lawfinity works with one firm per jurisdiction. Engagements begin with a single conversation about your firm’s current position and where the corridor question is live for you. Write to Prachi Shrivastava
