Managing Partner
Mehdi Tirmizi is the Managing Partner at Awan Seerat Tirmizi. His practice focuses on complex trials and appellate litigation, investor-State and commercial arbitrations, and discrete public international law mandates.
Till recently, Mehdi worked at the International Arbitration Group of a firm in Washington D.C, where his engagements included advising a middle eastern sovereign on ICSID and UNCITRAL arbitration claims in the energy sector. He also advised a European State on a dispute arising out of a defense contract for 5th generation fighter jets and surface-to-air missiles, and an Asian State on a territorial dispute.
Mehdi’s notable instructions before the High Courts in Pakistan include representing the Government against 9 IPP’s in proceedings that challenge an expert determination and a connected commercial arbitration before the LCIA. He also acts for Oil Marketing Companies as counsel in original and appellate proceedings arising out of the Federal Investigation Authority’s inquiry commission report on the shortage of petroleum products. His advisory mandates have required him to craft and formulate strategy for a prominent power purchaser on post award remedies in a commercial arbitration under the ICC Rules seated in Singapore; a Pakistani E&P Company on its litigation pertaining to certain oil blocks in Sindh; and a European E&P Company regarding its pending disputes before the High Courts in Pakistan.
Mehdi has second-chaired in several high-stakes Supreme Court litigations. These include acting for an E&P Company to challenge a change in Operatorship of an oil block through a foreign share purchase agreement; challenging a JVA between a Chilean and Canadian Mining consortium and the Government of Baluchistan for the development of one of the largest copper and gold deposits in the world; and defending the Government of Pakistan in a challenge to the award of a security/surveillance project to a multinational Chinese technology company.
Mehdi has a particular interest in damages and sanctions in investor-State arbitrations. He was part of a team of counsels defending an Asian State at the quantum phase in a multi-billion-dollar ICSID arbitration in the mining sector. He has also contributed to a chapter on the quantification of sanctions and damages, in a treatise on international investment disputes in the financial services sector.
Mehdi served as Law Clerk to Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Amir Hani Muslim of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
