ZELAYA ETCHEGARAY & Co: New Chilean Boutique focused on Dispute Resolution  

February 1, 2024

With the aim of offering specialised legal advice in the resolution of sophisticated disputes in a variety of different areas of modern business activity, the creation of new boutique ZELAYA ETCHEGARAY & Co. has recently been formalised.

The new Firm is headed by Pedro Zelaya Etchegaray, a civil law professor and independent arbitrator who was a partner at Larraín y Asociados for almost three decades, with a solid professional experience, especially in the areas of Litigation and Arbitration.

Zelaya is a professor of Civil Law at the University of Chile and PhD in Private Law from the University of Navarra, Spain, and he practices mainly as an independent arbitrator in national and international arbitrations, "ad hoc" and institutional, under the different procedural rules of the most prestigious Institutions.

The firm focuses on the alternative resolution of complex disputes, mainly the resolution of disputes arising between sophisticated parties in the course of their commercial and business activities.

According to Pedro Zelaya, "ZELAYA ETCHEGARAY & Co. was born as a natural response to the boom that arbitration has been experiencing worldwide, as an impartial, expeditious and specialised dispute resolution mechanism". Likewise, its creation responds to the gradual sophistication of the standards of independence and impartiality that the most modern codes of good arbitration practice and "soft law" now require of arbitrators around the world, "in order to avoid, as far as possible, conflicts of interest, thus protecting and increasing the prestige of arbitration as a safe alternative for the resolution of disputes", he added.

About Pedro Zelaya:

Pedro Zelaya is a lawyer from the University of Chile and holds a PhD from the University of Navarra, Spain. He has also been a professor of Civil Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile since 1993 and a member of the Chilean Bar Association since 1988.
After almost three decades as a partner of Larraín & Asociados, he decided to create a boutique firm, from which he can professionally dedicate himself to work as an independent and impartial arbitrator, forming part of national or international unipersonal or collegiate arbitration tribunals, as well as serving as an expert in Chilean law, extending his activity to the prevention and amicable solution of conflicts in complex contracts between companies, mainly in the Latin American market.
He is a member of the list of arbitrators of the Centro de Mediación y Arbitraje, CAM SANTIAGO, the Centro Iberoamericano de Arbitraje - CIAR and the Arbitration Center of AIDA CHILE, among others.

He also has a vast academic career. He is a professor in the Private Law Department of the Civil Law Faculty, where he teaches undergraduate and postgraduate courses. He is the author of countless publications, both in Chile and abroad. He has also participated as a lecturer in numerous conferences, seminars and specialised courses, especially in the fields of civil liability, arbitration and insurance.