Paula Costa e Silva

Practice Areas

Paula Costa e Silva’s work as independent arbitrator and legal expert focuses on corporate law, international contracts, banking, financial services, securities law and public-private partnerships.

Since 1986, she has taught, among other subjects, Contract and Tort Law, Securities Law, Copyright Law, Commercial Law and International Arbitration.

Career

Paula Costa e Silva is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, a fully qualified lawyer at the Portuguese and Brazilian Bar Associations, an independent arbitrator and a legal expert.

Professional Memberships

Paula Costa e Silva is a Fellow of CIArb.

She is, i.a., member of the lists of arbitrators of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC), the Arbitration and Mediation Centre of the Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce (CAM-CCBC), the CAM - Câmara de Arbitragem do Mercado, the B3 – Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão, the CAMARB - Câmara de Mediação e Arbitragem Empresarial - Brasil, the Med Arb RB (Mediation and Arbitration for Recovery and Business), the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (Shenzhen Arbitration Commission, SCIA), the South China International Arbitration Center (Hong Kong) Reccomended Panel of Arbitrators and the Commercial Arbitration Centre of the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CAC). She is also a member of the Panel of Recognised International Market Experts in Finance (P.R.I.M.E.).

Publications

Paula Costa e Silva is the author of more than 210 publications. Her published works include:

- Perturbaciones en el cumplimiento de los negocios procesales. Convenios arbitrales, pactos de jurisdicción, cláusulas escalonadas y otras tantas novelas quizás ejemplares, de las que se espera que entretengan mucho, Editorial Civitas, Thomson Reuters, Pamplona, 2021;

- Responsabilidade por conduta processual. Litigância de má fé e tipos especiais, Coimbra, Almedina, 2022;

- Estudos de Arbitragem, vols. I and II, Coimbra, Almedina, 2022;

- Lei de Arbitragem de Macau Anotada. Edição Bilingue Português-Chinês. Volume I (artigos 1.º a 45.º), Associação dos Advogados de Macau/AAFDL Editora

- Acto e Processo, Regressando ao dogma da irrelevância da vontade na interpretação e nos vícios do acto postulativo, Coleção O Novo Processo Civil, Thomson Reuters, Revista dos Tribunais, São Paulo, 2019;

- A Nova Face da Justiça. Os meios extrajudiciais de resolução de controvérsias, Coimbra Editora, Coimbra, 2009.

Among her most recent papers:

- An account of events, by definition, involves an understanding of the actors: a prova na arbitragem comercial internacional, Quaestio facti. Revista internacional sobre razonamiento probatorio, Núm. 6, 2024, available at https://revistes.udg.edu/quaestio-facti/article/view/22949;

- “Accord des parties sur la procédure ou décision des arbitres? La piège de Francfort et la petrification d’un processus souhaitablement ductile”, in AA/VV, Mélanges em l’honneur de Loïc Cadiet, Lexis Nexis, 2023, pp. 353–366;

- “Prova na arbitragem. O que pode o processo civil aprender com a arbitragem? O que pode a arbitragem aprender com o processo civil?”, in AA/VV, Direito Probatório, vol. II, Thoth Editora, 2023 pp. 357-374;

- “An Arbitration Center’s Perspective: Online Dispute Resolution and the Virtual Hearings: Six Characters in Search of an Author”, in Online dispute resolution – New Challenges, Dário Moura Vicente, Elsa Dias Oliveira, João Gomes de Almeida (Eds.), Centro de Investigação de Direito Privado da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa, Nomos, 2022, pp. 145-159.

Industry Sector Expertise

As an independent arbitrator, Paula Costa e Silva has experience in corporate law, public-private partnerships, construction, international contracts, banking & financing and patent law, among others. As arbitrator and legal expert in banking & finance, she was admitted to the Panel of Recognised International Market Experts in Finance (P.R.I.M.E.).

As a legal expert, Paula Costa e Silva has intervened in state and arbitration proceedings in different jurisdictions.

Expert in these Jurisdictions

Paula Costa e Silva has expertise in Portuguese Brazilian, Angolan and Mozambican jurisdictions.

Languages Spoken

Paula Costa e Silva’s mother tongues are Portuguese and German. She speaks English and Spanish fluently.

Experience

As an independent arbitrator, Paula Costa e Silva has participated as Sole Arbitrator, Presiding Arbitrator and Co-Arbitrator in more than one hundred national and international arbitrations, both institutionalised and ad hoc.

Paula Costa e Silva also has facilitated the mediation and negotiation of complex disputes.

Among others, she acts or has acted as an arbitrator for the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), the Arbitration and Mediation Centre of the Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce (CAM-CCBC), the Market Arbitration Chamber (CAM) and the Commercial Arbitration Centre of the Portuguese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CAC), of which she is also Vice-President.

In her academic career, she has participated in over 50 discussions of Doctoral disserations, in Portugal and Brazil, namely as jury chair, examiner or research director.

She has intervened, as speaker or moderator, in over 330 international and national conferences, mainly on alternative dispute resolution, corporate law, securities law and civil procedure.

Education

Awards