Recently a local lawyer, Tengo Rubadiri, the managing partner of Tengo Rubadiri Attorneys got an appointment into the 16- member Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa (AFSA). The arbitration body is chaired by retired South African Chief Sandile Ncgobo and comprises leading and reputable lawyers.
Rubadiri is a perfect appointment to the panel considering that he boasts over 30 years practicing experience in Botswana. A former judge of the Industrial Court during its formative years, Rubadiri is a member of the Chartered Institute Arbitrators (CIARB) and is also former chairperson of the Botswana Institute of Arbitrators of which he is the current vice chairperson.
The rich curriculum vitae also shows that Rubadiri is a member of the Association of Arbitrators of South Africa (AOA) and one of the members of the Dispute Resolution Boards Foundation (DRBF) and has experience on many a Dispute Board in construction work, particularly on FIDIC Contracts.
Rubadiri, the first Botswana lawyer to be appointed into the panel also has extensive training in international commercial dispute resolution and, in particular, arbitrations. He has wealth of training on matters involving the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Rules and London Chamber of Arbitration (LCIA) Rules, IBA Rules and AOA Rules.
In the arbitration panel, Rubadiri rubs shoulders with legal heavyweights, comprising the likes of Edwin Glasgow (Queens Counsel (QC) who deputises Justice Ncgobo. Others in the panel include Advocate Michael Kuper (Senior Counsel (SC), Des Williams, Professor Dr Maxi Scherer, Judge Edward Torbor, Professor Lise Bosman, Neil Kaplan (QC), John Bishop, Harry Matovu (QC), Dr Remy Gerbay, Jonathan Riplye Evans, Patrick Lane (SC), Professor David Butler, Bruce Collins (QC) and Dr Fuyong Chen.
The Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa is a private dispute resolution authority which manages and administers the confidential resolution of a wide-range of local and international disputes by way of mediation, adjudication, arbitration and related processes, with its headquarters in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa.
AFSA is a non-profit organization which counts amongst its founding members many of the leading firms and institutions in the attorney, accounting and advocate professions as well as organized and affiliated bodies. AFSA operates through its secretariat consisting of specialized executive staff, arbitrators, mediators and adjudicators who are appointed from AFSA’s extensive panels consisting of leading practitioners.
AFSA is the national and regional leader in its field and is named as the preferred dispute resolution authority in the King III Report on Corporate Governance and the organization administers numerous local business disputes and since 2017 handles a wide range of international disputing making it “a premier dispute resolution authority on the African continent”.
For those who know Rubadiri well, his appointment to AFSA did not come as a surprise particularly that he has always been actively involved in arbitration through his previous chairmanship of the Botswana Institute of Arbitrators, of which he is currently the deputy chair.
This on its own according to a lawyer who preferred to remain anonymous is enough testament on how involved Rubadiri has always been in arbitration related matters, and makes a lot of sense that he was found to be the right pick from Botswana, which for the first time finds itself with a member in the panel.
In his life time as a courtroom lawyer, Rubadiri has handled a number of high profile cases among them the extradition case by the state against Namibian refugees who were considered secessionists by their government, and wanted back home to face secession and terrorism charges, among them Mishake Muyongo. The group wanted the Caprivi Strip to be separated and treated as country outside the main Namibia.
Instructed by the Botswana Human Rights Organisation, Rubadiri rose to the occasion and saved the Namibians from extradition. This was not the first time that Rubadiri had proved his mettle as an extradition law specialist as he earlier saved another Malawian national, Frederick Chalira from extradition back home where he faced multiple charges of fraud and embezzlement of funds from the Malawi Petroleum Agency.
Rubadiri has undertaken a lot of labour related cases and was the Botswana Power Corporation lawyer against its former chief operations officer Jonathan Raheem Hosseini. The other case in which Rubadiri was involved is that of Jillian Blackbeard against the Botswana Tourism Organisation.
Rubadiri also represented the Botswana Railways Train Crews Union which had sought recognition which Botswana Railways had denied it arguing that there were other unions within the organisation that had already been recognized for bargaining purposes.
