Mandelbaum Barrett PC is excited to share that Ishaan Madaan, our Counsel and Head of India Desk, participated in London International Disputes Week 2026 and joined the distinguished panel “When Powerhouses Collide: Managing Disputes Across the US, UK and India.”
The panel — hosted by JAMS and Phoenix Legal, and moderated by Joe Tirado — convened on June 4, where Ishaan shared the stage with senior counsel and in-house leaders from across the international disputes community.
Now in its seventh year, LIDW has become the largest annual gathering of the global disputes community — described by its co-chair as the “Davos of Disputes.” LIDW26 brought together arbitrators, senior partners, in-house counsel, judges, academics, and government officials across nearly 400 member-hosted events. The edition drew over 5,000 in-person attendees from more than 115 jurisdictions.
The panel addressed one of the defining commercial questions of the decade: how do parties and counsel design dispute resolution strategies that manage cross-border risk and preserve important commercial relationships? The stakes are substantial — annual trade flows crossing $241 billion (US–India), £47 billion (UK–India), and over $300 billion (US–UK), linking financial markets, supply chains, and technology ecosystems across three legal powerhouses.
A few of the practitioner insights Ishaan shared with the room:
▸ Predictability is what allows relationships to survive disputes. The more predictable the path, the more likely the commercial relationship survives the journey.
▸ Pre-commitment to dispute resolution often feels like challenging the relationship parties are trying to build — across both Indian and Western traditions. Designing around that human instinct is, in many ways, the whole job.
▸ In cross-border matters, significant time is spent translating English to English. It is not an access problem. It is a weight problem. The same words carry different commercial weight depending on the tradition that shaped it.
▸ Recognition is the easy part. Execution is where the money is. Designing a strategy around enforcement of awards means thinking about asset tracing and enforcement jurisdiction from day one — not after the award.
The morning after the panel, The Economic Times ran a feature on the strategic logic driving foreign law firms to build dedicated India practices — and quoted Ishaan on the firm’s positioning in that landscape: “Mandelbaum Barrett’s India Desk reflects a deliberate response to where the US–India corridor is headed, in the mid-market… Indian companies expanding into US face a structural mismatch: BigLaw pricing for matters that do not require it. We bridge that gap with Chambers-recognised, BigLaw-trained talent and full-service capability at mid-market rates.”
The Mandelbaum Barrett India Desk, led by Ishaan from our Manhattan office, is built for the realities of the corridor: dual-qualified (India and New York), experienced in international arbitration and enforcement, and structured to deliver counsel to Indian businesses expanding into the United States, US clients with Indian exposure, and the cross-border matters that increasingly define both.
To discuss a US–India corridor matter or any international disputes question — whether at the contract stage, in a live dispute, or in enforcement planning — connect with our India Desk and International Disputes & Enforcement practice.