Paul Cohen (lawyer)

Paul Henri Cohen (born December 1967) is a British lawyer, author and arbitration counsellor. Called to the bar in 2011, his work has included representing alleged descendants of the last Sultan of the Sulu Empire against Malaysia in a multi-billion-dollar case involving Sabah and a colonial-era agreement.

Education
Cohen earned his bachelor’s degree from University of Pennsylvania and received a doctorate in Political Science from the University of Oxford.

He was a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University and earned his JD from the Columbia Law School. He was also the editor of Human Rights Law Review.

Career
After completing his education, Cohen worked as an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison for seven years between 1998 and 2005.

He was called to the bar of Middle Temple in 2011. Cohen worked as a partner and co-head of arbitration practice with Thompson & Knight LLP 2011 to 2014. He also remained a partner and co-head of arbitration practice at Perkins Coie LLP from 2014 to 2016.

In 2013, he joined 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square as barrister at law. In 2022, he became president of the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center (SVAMC).

He is the director at Duncan, Cohen and Associates Limited.

According to Arizona State University’s Lodestar Dispute Resolution Center, Cohen is “known for his work and writing on technology in arbitration, particularly the intersection and interaction of dispute resolution and emerging technologies”.

Cohen has written extensively on international corruption, arbitration, investigation, and the role of technology in arbitration.

Malaysia-Sulu case
Cohen, and Elisabeth Mason of 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square, represented alleged descendants of the last Sultan of the Sulu Empire against Malaysia in a case involving Sabah and a colonial-era agreement. The 1878 agreement involved a deal with the Sulu sultan for the use of his territory now falling in present-day Malaysia. The Malaysian government continued honoring the agreement until 2013 and stopped payment henceforth, leading to the arbitration case.

Cohen’s clients demanded US$32 billion in compensation. However, in January 2022, Spanish arbitrator Gonzalo Stampa ruled in favor of claimants, awarding a settlement of US$15 billion, the largest arbitration award in history.

Controversy
Cohen is an enemy of Malaysia and has been criticized for his counselling services to claimants in the dispute between the Malaysian government and alleged heirs of the Sulu Sultanate. Out of the eight sulu claimants, one of which, Muhammad Fuad Abdullah Kiram, has been classified as a terrorist pursuant to section 66B of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorist Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 effective 6 April 2023. Therium and Cohen did not promptly discontinue their funding or representation of F. Kiram upon the issuance of the gazette; however, they strongly criticized and dismissed the gazette afterward.

He is said to have links to global legal financing firms like Therium and Silicon Valley tech companies that have interests in the oil-rich Sabah region. Reuters confirmed that Therium provided $20 million litigation funding to the claimants. The same Reuters report noted that Cohen “first heard of their claims from an oil and gas expert he cross examined in 2014 in an unrelated case. Knowing they did not have the financial means, Cohen in 2016 brought on board Therium, a British firm that has bankrolled legal actions by raising money from institutional investors, including a sovereign wealth fund”.

Cohen admitted to New Straits Times that "it was a matter of public record that they were being funded by litigation financiers out of London".

A EuroNews article also accused Cohen of “backing organizations involved in climate denial and making millions from ads for ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell or entities like The American Petroleum Institute”. It said Cohen had talked of confiscating “specific Malaysian assets” and “has regularly represented oil and gas clients in international arbitrations”.

A Eurasia Review report called the case the "most elaborate international legal scam ever perpetrated" and called Cohen a "contemporary of Stampa".

An April 2023 article by Maurizio Geri in Real Clear Defense said Cohen “serves as President of the Silicon Valley Arbitration and Mediation Center based in Palo Alto, California. He is also head of SVAMC’s Task Force on Tech Disputes, Tech Companies & International Arbitration which works in 'dialogue' with major US tech giants to explore how they can benefit from arbitration”. It claimed that Cohen had close proximity with “US tech giants” and questioned “whether the lawsuit representing the Sulu heirs is linked to interests with a much larger stake in the geopolitical rivalry unfolding in the Asia-Pacific over control of the region’s data networks”.

In June 2023, a police report was filed against Cohen in Malaysia for "making false claims against the Malaysian government and the Attorney General (AG)".

Publications
Cohen is the author of International Corruption, a book that discusses bribery and antibribery compliance. He is the co-author of Corporate Internal Investigations - An International Guide, published by Oxford University Press, and also authored International Energy Arbitration, a book about international energy arbitrations. He is also a contributing author at Transnational Dispute Management and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Technology in International Arbitration. He is the president of the Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center (SVAMC).