Clémence Bernard is a Senior Associate in Peter & Kim’s Sydney office specialising in international arbitration and cross-border disputes. She has acted in investment arbitrations and commercial arbitrations under the UNCITRAL, SIAC, ICC and LMAA rules across the construction, energy, shipping, technology and manufacturing sectors. Her experience spans proceedings seated in Singapore and London and matters involving Australian, Singaporean, English and Indonesian law.
Prior to joining Peter & Kim, she practised at King & Wood Mallesons in Singapore, during which she completed a secondment with BHP for over a year. Prior to moving to Singapore, she worked as Deputy Counsel at the ICC in Paris and trained at White & Case and LALIVE.
- Associate, King & Wood Mallesons, Singapore (2022-2026)
- Legal Marketing Specialist, BHP Group Limited, Singapore (Secondment) (2023-2024)
- International Arbitration Trainee, LALIVE, Geneva (2022)
- Deputy Counsel, ICC, Paris (2021)
- International Arbitration Trainee, White & Case, Paris (2020)
- International Arbitration Intern, Peter & Kim, Sydney (2020)
- Associate, Australian Centre for International Commercial Arbitration, Sydney (2018-2019)
- LLM in Transnational Arbitration and Dispute Settlement (cum laude), Sciences Po, Paris (2020)
- JD, University of Sydney (2019)
- BA in Political Science & Literature (Dean’s List), Cornell University (2015)
Representative experience includes:
- Represented a Chinese contractor in a USD 1.4 billion ad hoc arbitration in relation to the construction of a blast furnace (UNCITRAL Rules, Indonesian law, Singapore seat)
- Represented an Australian company in a cement supply arbitration (SIAC Rules, Australian law)
- Represented a South Korean shipping company in a shipbuilding dispute (LMAA Terms, English law, London seat)
- Advised technology company on an AI hardware manufacturing dispute (SIAC Rules, Singapore seat)
- Advised French subcontractor on a potential construction dispute and settlement negotiations with contractor in Vietnam (Singapore law)
- Advised U.S. cloud computing company on enforcement actions against cryptocurrency mining in Vietnam
- In-house legal counsel at BHP for over a year, advising on the sale, purchase and transport of commodities and all aspects of a USD 10 million energy arbitration
- Deputy Counsel at the ICC in Paris
- Secretary to the ACICA Rules Committee
- Paul Starr, Amanda Lees, and Clémence Bernard, ‘The Tribunal didn’t hear me: challenges to an arbitral award for the Tribunal’s failure to consider all the issues’ KWM Pulse Blog (June 2025) [see five other co-authored articles published on KWM Pulse Blog here and Lexology here]
- James Morrison and Clémence Bernard, ‘Amendments to the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth)’, ACICA Review (December 2018)