Dr. Darya Shirokova is a triple-qualified lawyer (Russia, France and the US/California), specializing in international law with a particular focus on arbitration (commercial and investment) and energy contracts. In addition to arbitration, her practice also encompasses energy law, public international law and international litigation, including recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and arbitral awards.

Darya is a recognized thought leader in the field of energy law and arbitration. She is the author of a Wolters Kluwer monograph on state contracts in the energy industry, based on an empirical analysis of over 500 energy contracts worldwide. Her research demonstrates how geopolitical factors, bargaining power, and foreign investment strategies influence contract structures and dispute outcomes across different regions.

Dr. Shirokova is the Founder of the Houston Place of Arbitration (HPA), Assistant Editor of Journal of International Arbitration, one of the leading journals in the arbitration field, and is actively engaged with the Association of International Energy Negotiators (AIEN), maintaining relationships with in-house counsel and commercial negotiators across upstream, LNG, power, and renewables projects.

Darya spent five years in the Eastern-European team of the Secretariat of the ICC Court of Arbitration, where she administered hundreds of arbitration cases involving a large variety of disputes, including ‘heavy weight’ gas price readjustment ones. Prior to that, she worked in the litigation department of a major insurance company, as well as in several arbitration law firms.

She holds a JD from Perm State University (Russia), two master’s degrees from Université Paris I Sorbonne (France) and a PhD in International Law from Queen Mary University of London (United Kingdom). She is fluent in French, English, and Russian, with working proficiency in Spanish and basic Arabic.