Roundtable Luncheon with Professor Robert Danon and Riyaz Dattu
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Professor Robert Danon, Full Professor of Law, Expert in International Arbitration and Tax Related Disputes; Partner, DANON; Chairman of IFA's Permanent Scientific Committee
Robert Danon is a tenured Professor of Law ("Professeur ordinaire") at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), where he heads its Tax Policy Center and leads its research platform dedicated to “Tax Disputes and Investment Arbitration”. He has widely published in all areas of Swiss and international tax law and is in particular the co-editor of forthcoming volumes on "Tax Issues in International Investment Arbitration" (Kluwer) and "Tax Treaty Interpretation in light of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties" (International Fiscal Association). He also serves as the Chairman of the Permanent Scientific Committee (PSC) of the International Fiscal Association.
Robert practices Swiss and international tax law as an independent expert with over twenty years of experience. At the international level, his practical expertise focuses on tax treaties and their interpretation, non-discrimination, abuse of rights by taxpayers and States (including State responsibility), dispute resolution, comparative taxation and transfer pricing. His practice also concentrates on the interaction between investment arbitration and tax-related disputes.
Robert is regularly called to give evidence as an expert witness or to act as a consultant in the framework of domestic and foreign court proceedings, mutual agreement and arbitration procedures, including those involving non-tax agreements such as bilateral investment treaties or the Energy Charter Treaty. He has served as an expert witness in international and comparative tax law in several high-profile arbitration cases under the arbitral rules of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). He is also on the list of possible arbitrators under the mandatory binding arbitration clauses provided by selected bilateral tax treaties.
Robert has also been involved in several tax reforms and assists both taxpayers and governments on tax policy matters. He has testified before Parliamentary Committees. For instance, in 2015, he was requested by Switzerland's finance minister to analyze the entire constitutionality of its corporate tax reform designed to comply with the OECD/G20 and EU standards. Moreover, he is regularly invited by the OECD to express his views on matters of international tax law and policy. In particular, he has been invited on several occasions by the OECD to express his views on the challenges raised by the digitalization of the economy (“Pillar One”) and the introduction of a Global Minimum Tax ("Pillar Two").
Riyaz Dattu, Canada Legal Practice Leader, ArentFox Schiff LLP, Investment Arbitrations and International Trade Disputes
Riyaz Dattu has for over 35 years been providing advice to businesses on investment treaty provisions within NAFTA, the Energy Charter, the CETA and the CPTPP and other free trade agreements, investment contracts, and bilateral investment protection treaties.
He was involved in the very first two claims in the 2002-3 period under Canada’s foreign investment promotion and protection agreements (FIPAs) acting for the Bank of Nova Scotia against Argentina and EnCana against Ecuador.
In the area of WTO disputes, Riyaz began his involvement with some of the earliest disputes concerning U.S periodicals and Japanese autos. In addition, he has been counsel in a number of NAFTA trade remedies disputes.
He started he career at McCarthy Tétrault LLP (1984) and then moved to Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP (2006), and led the international trade and investment practice at both firms, until he joined ArentFox Schiff in 2021, as the Canada Legal Practice Leader.
His practice includes international investment arbitrations, international trade disputes (including before NAFTA panels, the WTO, and domestic courts), trade remedies, international trade regulations (economic sanctions, export controls, customs), trade policy and market access, government procurement, national security, corporate investigations, and anti-corruption.
The Federal Government of Canada has appointed Riyaz for a ten-year term on the roster of panelists for the dispute resolution process now Chapter 10 of the USMCA.
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