Redstone Chambers

Vartui Kurkdjian

A native of Venice, Vartui Kurkdjian is currently a Milan-based international business lawyer, mediator and arbitrator, and the founder of Kurkdjian Law Office. 

Vartui is a member of Italian Bar admitted to the Italian Supreme Court. Her main areas of expertise include negotiations of complex international business agreements and M&A’s, as well as litigation and arbitration with a focus on construction agreements, international banking, and sale and distribution agreements. 

She is a co-founder and the President of the Italian Centre for International and Comparative Arbitration Law which studies the comparative aspects of arbitration proceeding and aims at assisting cooperation among arbitrators worldwide. 

Between 1989 and 1998, while practising as counsel and attorney, Vartui was an Assistant Professor at the Bologna University Faculty of Law, where she taught Constitutional Law. 

Vartui held numerous professional law seminars at the universities of Milan (Bocconi), Rome (Luiss), Genoa, Trento, Verona, and Venice. She was also a Visiting Professor at the Law Faculty of Dom Bosco University in Curitiba, Brazil. 

She is a trainer and speaker at various legal seminars and other events organised by chambers of commerce and entrepreneurial associations all over the world. 

Special Appointments

• Legal Adviser to the EU Commission drafting the European Contract Law Rules (CFR Network)

• Legal Adviser to UNIDO - power projects financing programmes

• Legal Adviser to the European Union for PHARE and TACIS programmes

Publications

• Produrre all'estero (“Producing Abroad”), edited by Il Sole 24 Ore, 1996 and 1999

• Contratti internazionali (“International Business Agreements”), IPSOA-Kluwer, 2001-2004

• Manuale di Commercio Internazionale (“Handbook of International Trade”), Kluwer 2002-2007- 2011, as co-author

• Trattato di Diritto Europeo dei Contratti (“Guide to the European Contract Law”, Ed. Giappichelli, as co-author

• More than 200 articles and other contributions on international business law topics

Representative Experience

• Successfully representing a Czech bank in an Italian Court against an Italian multinational, the matter involving payment of an international letter of credit and of a stand-by letter of credit (international law, ICC UCP rules, and complex jurisdictional matters)

• Third Arbitrator (Panel Chairwoman) in an ad hoc arbitration in a multi-party complex dispute, involving a bank guarantee and the rights of a stockholder

• Third Arbitrator (Panel Chairwoman) in an arbitration involving a construction agreement (breach on the part of a contractor - ad hoc)

• Sole Arbitrator in an arbitral proceeding involving a bank guarantee that could not be honoured because of a public authority provision that influenced the duties of the bank and those of the client

• A Sole Arbitrator in the proceeding involving a dispute between the Italian and American parties (purchase of services agreement)

• Advising a Mexican corporation on the acquisition of an Italian company

• Successfully representing a Hungarian claimant in an international arbitration against an Italian multinational

• Counsel to an Italian group of companies in a joint venture in the former USSR (1991)

• Counsel to an Italian conglomerate acquiring an Egyptian utilities company

• Regularly mediating various matters relating to the (alleged) breach of international business agreements

• Constantly advising Italian and foreign companies on distribution agreements, complex commercial agreements, joint ventures, and international legal strategy

Vartui is available to accept appointments as an arbitrator or mediator.