Partner, HFW
Singapore
Chanaka is a partner in HFW's Energy & Resources / International Arbitration group. He is a qualified lawyer in England and Wales and Singapore. He joined HFW (London) in 2002 and has been permanently based in HFW (Singapore) since 2005.
He has twenty years experience working in the upstream oil & gas sector, acting for contractors in various market conditions, both in the negotiation of all project contracts and providing full service dispute management.
Chanaka is recommended in the Legal 500 for handling energy disputes and as having "experience handling disputes in places as far afield as Brazil and Nigeria, as well as in jurisdictions throughout Asia".
He regularly leads on the drafting and negotiation of a broad range of contracts for both the construction and charter of FPSOs, FSOs, MODUs and PSVs. He has extensive experience with a range of contracting arrangements to include PRE-FEED, FEED, EPC, and EPCIC contracts. Chanaka also advises on various offshore services agreements relating to installation, supply, logistics, maintenance and operator services.
He handles large, complex multi-jurisdictional international arbitrations. Over the last twenty years he has managed disputes in Brazil, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, UAE, Iraq, India, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Korea and China. He has successfully applied on numerous for appointment of Emergency Arbitrators for urgent interim relief and has secured various injunctions from arbitration tribunals, including injunctions under the rarely used Security for Claim jurisdiction.
Chanaka has also been appointed both as an arbitrator and a mediator. He is a Fellow (FCIArb) of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and listed as an arbitrator on the SIAC reserve panel. Chanaka has also been appointed to the KLRCA panel both as an arbitrator and a mediator and by the Singapore Mediation Centre as one of their associate mediators. He has sat on the SIAC Users Council National Committee for Singapore.
Chanaka is named by the Legal 500 as a key individual for International Arbitration in Singapore and recognised as having "experience handling disputes in places as far afield as Brazil and Nigeria, as well as in jurisdictions throughout Asia".
Chanaka is a qualified lawyer in England and Wales and Singapore.
