Serghei COVALI

Mr. Serghei Covali is a Moldovan lawyer, trained in both civil law and common law traditions. He graduated from the Moldova State University Law School. Several years after that, he earned an LLM from BYU Law School (USA). Later in his career, he pursued and graduated with an LLM degree from Queen Mary University of London in international commercial and investment arbitration.

In the last 10 years, Mr. Covali was involved in about 20 international arbitration cases. In most of them, he acted as a solo counsel. In the last several years he has been acting as arbitrator in international arbitration cases (as presiding arbitrator, as well as co-arbitrator).

Mr. Covali was involved in the following type of arbitral proceedings:

• A series of ad hoc (UNCITRAL) and institutional FIDIC arbitral proceedings (seat in Paris or the Hague, applicable substantive law – Moldovan or Romanian; as counsel or arbitrator);
• Several FOSFA and GAFTA proceedings (seat in London, applicable substantive law – English);
• One LMAA arbitral procedure (seat in London, applicable substantive law – English);
• One DIS arbitration for an EFET contract (seat in Munich, applicable substantive law – German);

As a local counsel or teaming up with lawyers from other jurisdictions, Mr. Covali was involved in the following kind of cases:

• Energy / petroleum disputes in the Iraq region of Kurdistan;
• Around the world recognition and enforcement of an investor state award against a major state in Asia. The claimants are Moldovan residents;
• Opposing the recognition and enforcement of an award against a Moldovan company in the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit;

Mr. Covali can work in Romanian, English and Russian. He is also fluent in Italian and near fluent in Spanish. He is one of the very few professionals in Moldova who feels comfortable to represent clients as lead counsel in international arbitration proceedings (be it under the ICC, SCC, LCIA, LMAA, UNCITRAL or other rules).

Mr. Covali was heavily involved in drafting the new Moldovan law on arbitration (not yet adopted).