Vinayak P. Pradhan, FCIArb, FMIArb, FACICA, was appointed as the Director of the AIAC on 21st November 2018.
In his 45 over years of legal practice, he has been a wide-ranging litigation and arbitration lawyer with ultimate focus on commercial, construction, engineering and energy disputes. Mr. Pradhan’s experience spans across domestic and international matters involving a wide variety of foreign laws (England, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam, Qatar, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, India, Sri Lanka, Mongolia, Bangladesh, Thailand, the Philippines and Singapore) and institutional rules (ICC, AIAC, UNCITRAL, LCIA, HKIAC, SIAC, PORAM, PAM and IEM).
In 2016, Vinayak became the first recipient of the ‘Arbitrator of the Year Award’ by the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Malaysia Branch). In his citation, the Chief Justice of Singapore, Mr. Sundaresh Menon, had this to say:
“In the course of my career at the Bar, I acted as counsel in many arbitrations. I therefore have had the opportunity to appear before a fair number of arbitrators from many parts of the world. With the benefit of this perspective, I have no hesitation in saying that I personally rate Vinayak among the very finest of them.”