Steptoe hires Queen Mary professor Loukas Mistelis as London arbitration partner, bolstering its international disputes practice with a leading ICC and ICSID practitioner

Steptoe has recruited Loukas Mistelis as a partner in its international disputes practice in London. Mistelis is the Clive Schmitthoff Professor of Transnational Commercial Law and Arbitration at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London, one of the foremost academic centres for international arbitration in the world. He joins from Clyde & Co. Mistelis's practice spans both international commercial arbitration and investor-state arbitration (disputes between foreign investors and sovereign states, typically governed by bilateral investment treaties). He has acted as expert, counsel, and arbitrator in high-value matters before a range of major arbitral institutions, including the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce), ICSID (International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes), LCIA (London Court of International Arbitration), PCA (Permanent Court of Arbitration), UNCITRAL, SCC, and DIAC. The combination of top-tier academic credentials and institutional arbitration experience is relatively rare and positions Mistelis as a practitioner capable of sitting on both sides of the arbitration table — as counsel or as arbitrator. The hire reflects continued lateral investment by US firms in London's international disputes market, where elite arbitration capacity is a critical differentiator for cross-border transactional and post-M&A dispute mandates.