Elina Mereminskaya

Lawyer and partner of WAGEMANN Lawyers & Engineers.

She has focused her professional practice on providing consultancy services to Chilean, Latin-American and European companies in construction, infrastructure, mining and energy projects, in both public and private sectors. She is experienced in the field of dispute prevention and claim management in construction contracts, excelling also as a specialist in arbitration.

Before joining WAGEMANN, she worked as Senior Lawyer in the Litigation and International Arbitration Group at Bofill Mir & Álvarez Jana Abogados. Prior to that, she worked as Counsel for International Arbitration in the Center for Arbitration and Mediation of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce (CAM Santiago).

Between 2017 and 2021, she served as a member of the Board of CAM Santiago and as a member of its Ethics Committee. Since 2016, she has been part of its list of referees. In addition, she belongs to the list of arbitrators of various arbitration centers, such as the Lima Chamber of Commerce, the International Center of Dispute Resolution (ICDR) and the Center for Conciliation and Arbitration of Panama, among others.

Between 2004 and 2018 she was a graduate and postgraduate professor of National and International Arbitration, International Commercial Arbitration, International Contracting and Private International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Chile. She is currently a professor in the Diploma Courses in Construction Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and at the Los Andes University.

Elina Mereminskaya is FCIArb (Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, CIArb).

In 2018 and 2019, she was highlighted by Who’s Who Legal (WWL) as Future Leader in Arbitration. In 2020, she was distinguished in two WWL rankings as one of the expert lawyers in construction law in Chile, as well as one of the best four specialist lawyers in the Arbitration ranking. In 2021, she was also highlighted by WWL, twice again: as Thought Leader in Construction, as well as Global Leader in Arbitration (in the latter category, as one of the top five experts in the country).

In 2021, The Legal 500 included her in the Arbitration Power List – Latin America.

Her most relevant publications are the book International Commercial Arbitration in Chile: Challenges and Development, Thomson Reuters, 2014; “Latin Lawyer References – Construction Chile”, 2019,  and “The formation of consent in the contract for the construction of private works: the role of clarifications and responses to inquiries”, Derecho de Construcción, 2017, both with Alex Wagemann, and “Suggested Policies for Tribunal-Appointed Experts in Construction Disputes”, TDM Papers Special Issue on Non-Legal Adjudicators in National and International Disputes, 2017, with Fernando Landeros.

  • Doctor in Law (Ph.D.), University of Göttingen, Germany.
  • Master of Laws, University of Göttingen, Germany.
  • Attorney-at-law, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (former Kaliningrad State University), Russia.
  • FIDIC contracts practical use (module 1 FIDIC).
  • Variation and claim management and dispute settlement (module 2 FIDIC).
  • Dispute Board Experienced User & Practitioner Workshop DBRF.
  • Specialty in Construction Law, Los Andes University.
  • Member of the list of arbitrators of the International Center of Dispute Resolution (ICDR).
  • Member of the list of international arbitrators and international adjudicators of the Lima Chamber of Commerce Arbitration Center (CCL).
  • Member of the list of arbitrators of the Center for Analysis and Resolution of Conflicts of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru.
  • Member of the list of arbitrators and alternate member of the Court of AMCHAM Peru.
  • Member of the list of arbitrators of the Conciliation and Arbitration Center of Panama.
  • Member of the Arbitration Center of the Montevideo Stock Exchange (Uruguay).
  • Member of the Ethics Committee of the Santiago Chamber of Commerce.
  • Vice President of the Infrastructure Committee of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Chile (Camacoes).
  • Vice President of the Project Initiation Subcommittee of the International Bar Association (IBA).
  • Vice President of the Americas Initiative of the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA).
  • Member of the Chilean Society of Construction Law.
  • Languages: Russian, Spanish, English and German.
  • Latin Lawyer Regulator – Construction Chile, with Alex Wagemann and Fernando Landeros, 2020-2021.
  • “Should the law foresee the unforeseeable? The unforeseeable trends in Chile in view of the Covid-19 pandemic”, with Álvaro Jara, published in Construction Law International Magazine, Vol 15 N°3, September 2020, of the International Bar Association, London, United Kingdom.
  • “Corruption in state arbitration in the Republic of Peru: cases, lessons and possible solutions”, with Claudio Inostroza, published in The Russian Arbitration Journal, January-February 2020 edition.
  • “Latin Lawyer References – Construction Chile”, with Alex Wagemann, 2019.
  • “When the seat of arbitration is not the place of arbitration and the lex arbitriis not the law of the seat of arbitration”, Lima Arbitration, 2018.
  • “The formation of consent in the contract for the construction of private works: the role of clarifications and responses to inquiries”, Derecho de Construcción, Editorial Metropolitana, 2017, with Alex Wagemann, 2017.
  • “Suggested Policies for Tribunal-Appointed Experts in Construction Disputes”, TDM Papers Special Issue on Non-Legal Adjudicators in National and International Disputes, with Fernando Landeros, 2017.
  • “Third-party funding of litigation and its arrival in Chile”, CAM Santiago Newsletter, Nº 3, 2017.
  • “Long live the arbitration! Once it has been born”, International Law Current Issues. In honor of Mario Ramírez Necochea,
  • In collaboration with Andrés Jana, attorney-at-law, “International Commercial Arbitration in Latin America: Myths and Realities”, Journal of International Arbitration, 2015.
  • “The path is made as you go: Appeal for nullity in Latin-American case-law”, International Commercial Arbitration. Recognition and Execution of foreign arbitration judgments and awards, Organization of American States (OAS), 2014.
  • International commercial arbitration in Chile: Challenges and Development, Thompson Reuters, Santiago, Chile, 2014.
  • “Santiago Arbitration and Mediation Center (CAM Santiago)”, World Arbitration Reporter, JurisNet, 2014.
  • “Results of the Survey on the Use of Soft Law Instruments in International Arbitration”, Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 2014.
  • “Application of an arbitration agreement to a non-signatory party in Chilean law: Reality and prospects”, Commercial Law Department Journal, University of Chile, 2014.