Alexa Romanelli is an English-qualified Associate in the London office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, practicing in the firm’s Dispute Resolution Group. She is a member of the firm’s International Arbitration, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), Litigation, and Enforcement of Judgments and Arbitral Awards practice groups.

Ms. Romanelli regularly represents clients in their complex and multi-jurisdictional disputes. She also regularly advises clients on matters of public international law, and on sustainability and business & human rights matters such as emerging ESG legislation and regulatory requirements, human rights and policy training, and ESG related disputes.

Ms. Romanelli has acted in complex disputes before international tribunals, both ad hoc and under the rules of major arbitral institutions (including ICSID, UNITRAL, ICC, LCIA and SCC), and before the English and BVI courts.  Ms. Romanelli has also acted on multiple campaigns for the enforcement of ultra-high-value arbitral awards across jurisdictions, against sovereign and private entities. She has acted for a broad range of clients including international oil companies, multinational corporations, banks, investment firms and sovereign governments.

Recent representations include:

• Acting in a shareholder dispute between members of an oil and gas joint venture in multiple high-value LCIA arbitrations seated in London, with claims in excess of US$2 billion.
• Representing investors in a telecommunications enterprise with over US$1.5 billion in arbitration awards against a sovereign state in the enforcement of those awards, as well as in a high-value UNCITRAL arbitration relating to the respondent state’s payment of debts under those awards.
• Acting for a major international contractor in a US$4 billion dollar ICC arbitration arising out of a Middle Eastern infrastructure project.
• Representing claimants in an ICSID arbitration under the DR-CAFTA arising from their investments in the mining industry. (Daniel W. Kappes and Kappes, Cassiday & Associates v. Guatemala).*
• Advising OJSC International Bank of Azerbaijan, the largest commercial bank in Azerbaijan, on its application for a continuation of its English moratorium in connection with the restructuring of approximately US$3.4 billion of its financial indebtedness (Gunel Bakhshiyeva (in her capacity as the foreign representative of the OJSC International Bank of Azerbaijan) v. Sberbank of Russia & Ors. A2/2018/0084).*
• Acted for a Middle Eastern telecoms company in the successful defence of an ICC arbitration brought by a UK company.*
• Acted as secretary to the sole arbitrator in a contractual dispute filed at the London Court of International Arbitration.*

In addition to her client work, Ms. Romanelli is a member of the London office’s pro bono committee. She is currently working with APPEAL in investigating the conviction of a teenage girl, with significant history of trauma and abuse, for joint enterprise murder. She represented JUSTICE as third party intervener in a Supreme Court case regarding compensation for victims of miscarriages of justice (R (on the application of Nealon) (Appellant) v Secretary of State for Justice (Respondent) [2019] UKSC 2), as well as in the related  European Court of Human Rights proceedings. She also coordinates Gibson Dunn’s involvement with the Domestic Abuse Response Alliance, regularly advises clients on potential claims before the European Court of Human Rights, and assists clients in relation to humanitarian parole and asylum applications.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Ms. Romanelli trained and practiced as a solicitor in the dispute resolution team at White & Case’s London offices. She was admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales in September 2017.

Ms. Romanelli earned her BA Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford in 2014. She also holds a BA (Joint Honours) in International Development and Middle East Studies from McGill University.

She is professionally fluent in English and French. She also speaks Italian and Arabic.

*Some of these representations occurred prior to Ms. Romanelli’s association with Gibson Dunn.