George Kahale III

Mr. Kahale is the head of the firm’s renowned international arbitration practice. He is recognized as a leading international arbitration lawyer by Chambers, Global Arbitration Review, and Legal 500, in which he is described as “widely revered for his record in prominent state-side representations.” Legal 500 USA has ranked Mr. Kahale in its elite "Hall of Fame" for international arbitration since 2020, and reports that clients describe him as “a leader in the field of international arbitration” and “unbeatable in both commercial and investment arbitration.” He appears in The American Lawyer’s last Arbitration Scorecard, which ranked Curtis as the #1 international arbitration practice based on the number of billion-dollar cases handled by the firm, and was featured on the cover of the penultimate Arbitration Scorecard.

Mr. Kahale has written many articles on topics of international interest, such as sovereign immunity, the act of state doctrine, international arbitration and international petroleum contracts. A three-time winner of the Burton Award for Distinguished Legal Writing, he was honored for his articles: “Is Investor-State Arbitration Broken”; “Rethinking ISDS”; and most recently, “The Mobil and Conoco cases against Venezuela: the good, the bad and the ugly”. All three articles have been the source of extensive commentary and debate.

He has also appeared as a keynote speaker and lecturer at various seminars and conferences. In 2014, he delivered the keynote address at the eighth annual Juris Investment Treaty Arbitration Conference, which received a nomination by GAR for best lecture of the year. In 2015, he lectured at the Arbitration Academy in Paris. In 2018 he delivered the inaugural Brooklyn Lecture on International Business Law in New York under the title “ISDS: The Wild Wild West of International Practice,” as well as the widely reported keynote address at the 8th Investment Treaty Arbitration Conference in Prague, which was also nominated by GAR for best lecture of the year. In 2019, he addressed the International Institute of Sustainable Development’s 12^th Annual Forum of Developing Country Investment Negotiators, which was held in Cartagena, Colombia. In 2020, he was a keynote speaker at the Annual Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators, and he also delivered an address under the title, "Damages in ISDS: Just Compensation or Highway Robbery?" at a webinar hosted by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI). Mr. Kahale has recently written a commentary on proposals concerning damages being considered by UNCITRAL Working Group III (2024).

Mr. Kahale was the subject of a feature article entitled “The Oil Baron” in the June 2008 issue of The American Lawyer magazine. In February 2009, Latin Lawyer awarded its Restructuring Deal of the Year honor to a Curtis team led by Mr. Kahale for a series of financing transactions relating to oil projects in Venezuela. In April of the same year, The American Lawyer named him as one of its “Dealmakers of the Year” for his work representing KazMunayGas, the national oil company of Kazakhstan, on agreements for the development of the giant Kashagan oil field. Mr. Kahale has acted as lead counsel in the negotiation of many multi-billion-dollar corporate transactions and agreements in various countries around the world, and has been the primary draftsman of several important model agreements in use in international business today.