Tewfik Shehata, Senior Partner and Head of Litigation & Arbitration, has over 38 years of extensive experience as counsel, sole arbitrator, co-arbitrator and presiding arbitrator in more than 75 ad hoc and institutional arbitrations. In addition to arbitration, he has extensive experience in corporate law, banking and project finance, as well as in other fields of commercial, civil, labor law, and litigation.
He practiced law successively in Al Kamel Law Office, Dentons’ Cairo office, and Zaki Hashem & Partners where he served as Senior Partner for 14 years and headed the Firm’s Arbitration Department starting 2009. In 2016, he established his own private practice, Shehata, Attorneys at Law. In early 2025 and after an interruption of nine years, he rejoined ZH as Senior Partner and Head of the Litigation and Arbitration Departments.
Tewfik has handled several local and international commercial arbitrations involving both public and private entities under most major arbitration centres, including the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Swiss Chambers of Commerce (SCC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA), the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), and the German Arbitration Institute (DIS). He has also gained excellent repute in state courts disputes related to setting aside of arbitral awards (mainly Cairo Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation).
Selected examples of his experience in leading arbitration cases include:
- A leading mobile telecommunications company in an interconnection price dispute exceeding USD 1.3 billion (CRCICA).
- A major worldwide construction company in a construction dispute exceeding USD 200 million (CRCICA).
- A major worldwide real estate investment and development company in a land purchase dispute exceeding USD 100 million (CRCICA).
- A leading medical laboratories services company in Egypt in an MOU dispute exceeding USD 100 million (CRCICA).
- A leading company for financial investments in a Share Purchase dispute amounting to USD 50 million (CRCICA).
- A global chemicals company in a shareholders’ agreement dispute exceeding USD 25 million (ICC).
- A primary international entertainment and tourism company in a usufruct dispute amounting to USD 12 million (CRCICA).
- A leading international insurance company in an SPA dispute exceeding USD 8 million (CRCICA).
- A state-owned maritime services company in a shipping dispute amounting to USD 4 million (London Maritime Arbitration Association (LMAA)).
- A state-owned maritime services company in a maritime dispute amounting to USD 2 million (Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC)).
- A major international hospitality corporation in a hotel Management dispute amounting to USD 1 million (London Court for International Arbitration (LCIA)).
- A leading mobile telecommunication company in real estate dispute exceeding USD 2.5 million (CRCICA).
- A major petroleum company in a drilling dispute exceeding USD 1 million (CRCICA).
- A leading mobile telecommunication company in a real estate dispute exceeding USD 2 million (CRCICA).
- A leading regional medical laboratories services company in a contractual liability dispute exceeding USD 145 million (CRCICA).
Additionally, Tewfik advises clients in all commercial and corporate aspects of their businesses including drafting, reviewing, and negotiating all types of commercial contracts as well as incorporating businesses (e.g. branches, representative offices, companies of all forms) and handling the companies’ relation with local authorities. He also advises on all corporate-related fields of Egyptian law including taxation, competition/antitrust laws, consumer protection laws, start-ups, doing business in free zones, and employment.
He also has extensive experience in drafting and negotiating loan agreements both on the lender’s and borrower’s side and has represented investors undertaking projects in Egypt in different sectors such as telecommunications, highways, ports, power plants, and cement plants. He has drafted numerous loan agreements and their related security documentation, issued legal opinions on the satisfaction of the conditions precedent in such loan agreements, and provided all legal support to his clients in the negotiation and execution of such loan agreements from inception to successful completion.
Tewfik is member of the Egyptian Bar Association since 1986 and was admitted before the Court of Cassation in 2004. He is a Fellow Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb) since 2001, a member of the LCIA Users’ Councils since 2011, a member of the Egyptian Society for International Law, and a Long Standing Member of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt. He is fluent in Arabic, English, and French. He has been ranked by Chambers and Partners since 2019 with recent Band 2 rankings in Arbitration in 2024 and 2025.
He received the LL.B. from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ain Shams, Egypt, in 1985 and the LL.M. in International Business Law from the Institut de Droit des Affaires Internationales (IDAI) of the University of Cairo and Paris I (Panthéon – Sorbonne) in 1991. He has also studied “Taxation” (1998) and “Advanced Taxation” (2001) at the Center for Adult & Continuing Education of the American University in Cairo.
Email: tewfik.shehata@hashemlaw.com
