Profile

Maria Chiara Malaguti is a leading figure in international arbitration, trade law, and investment law. She serves as Of Counsel at PedersoliGattai in Milan and Rome, and holds the Chair in International Law at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, where she teaches trade law and international law and economics. She is President Emeritas of UNIDROIT, having served as the organization's President from 2020 to 2025 - the first woman to hold the position. She is also Co-Director of the Roma Tre-UNIDROIT Centre for Transnational Commercial Law and International Arbitration.

Prof. Malaguti is an active international arbitrator, included on the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators on designation by the Italian Republic, the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, and the rosters of several major arbitral institutions including the Shanghai International Arbitration Center (SHIAC), the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, and the Baku Arbitration Centre. She is the Italian delegate to the ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR for the 2024-2027 term and serves as President of the ICC Italy Nomination Committee. She also sits on the WTO Panel of Dispute Settlement Body panelists and on the EU Roster of eligible arbitrators and Trade and Sustainable Development experts for bilateral disputes under EU trade agreements. In her advisory capacity, she serves as legal consultant to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on trade matters and supports the Italian Attorney General's Office in investor-state arbitration proceedings brought against Italy.

Her scholarly work spans financial markets, sovereign debt, the harmonization of law, and international investment law. Her publications include the treatise Diritto del Commercio Internazionale - Fondamenti e Prospettive (co-authored with A. Mazzoni, Giappichelli 2019, also published in Spanish and German), Crisi dei mercati finanziari e diritto internazionale (Giuffré 2003), and The Payments System in the European Union: Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell 1997). Among her recent articles, she has written on third-party funding in investor-state dispute settlement, the adaptation of contracts under the UNIDROIT Principles, ADR in international investment law, and the use of the UNIDROIT Principles in international investment arbitration. She is a member of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (ICCA), the LCIA, the ICC Institute of World Business Law, and the Academic Forum on ISDS. Prof. Malaguti holds a law degree and a degree in economics from the University of Bologna, an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, and a Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence. She is admitted to the Bars of Bologna and New York and is qualified to plead before the Italian High Courts.

PedersoliGattai is a premier Italian law firm with over 380 professionals across offices in Milan, Rome, and Turin. Formed in 2024 through the merger of two distinguished Italian practices, the firm has rapidly achieved top-tier status, earning more than 50 Chambers rankings and recognition as a market leader across its core disciplines. PedersoliGattai delivers comprehensive legal counsel in corporate M&A, private equity, banking and finance, capital markets, structured finance, commercial contracts, and high-profile dispute resolution, serving a diverse clientele that includes leading industrial enterprises, financial institutions, investment funds, and multinational corporations.

The firm's Litigation, Arbitration, and ADR practice - comprising over 50 dedicated professionals - stands as a particular hallmark of excellence. The team advises and represents clients in both domestic and international arbitration proceedings, including ad hoc and institutional arbitrations, as well as complex investor-state disputes under frameworks such as the ICSID Convention and the Energy Charter Treaty. Its practitioners serve as both counsel and arbitrators in proceedings before major international bodies, including the ICC, and contribute to the development of international arbitration standards through leadership roles at institutions such as UNIDROIT.

UNIDROIT - the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law - is an independent intergovernmental organization headquartered in Rome. Originally established in 1926 under the League of Nations, it today counts 65 member states from every continent. Its mission is to modernize, harmonize, and coordinate private and commercial law across national borders by developing uniform legal instruments, principles, and rules.

Among UNIDROIT's most influential instruments are the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (UPICC), which provide a comprehensive, neutral set of rules on contract formation, interpretation, performance, and remedies that parties may adopt as the governing law of their agreement and that arbitral tribunals regularly use to interpret contractual provisions or fill gaps in applicable domestic law. More recently, UNIDROIT adopted its Principles on Digital Assets and Private Law (2023), a technology-neutral instrument offering legislative guidance on the proprietary, custodial, and transactional aspects of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and tokens. In a parallel initiative undertaken jointly with the ICC Institute of World Business Law, UNIDROIT is also developing Principles and Model Clauses for International Investment Contracts, which aim to standardize the contractual relationship between states and private investors and to address issues such as sustainability and corporate social responsibility.