PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE:
Kanaga Dharmananda has a broad commercial litigation and arbitration practice, with a focus on resources, finance, projects, and insolvency matters. His practice covers company law including schemes of arrangements and directors’ duties. He has acted as counsel in a range of high profile and high value commercial disputes in Court, on appeal, and in arbitrations in Australia and abroad.
He began his career at Mallesons in Perth and Sydney. Before the bar, Kanaga was a partner at Corrs, Counsel with Mitsubishi Corporation, Tokyo, and Counsel with the United Nations in Geneva.
His practice as Senior Counsel spans the mining, energy, and commodities industries. He appears in matters concerning regulated industries and in Royal Commissions or other inquiries. He has acted in arbitrations in, and outside, Australia, including disputes arising from projects in Australia, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast and North Asia, and Africa. He accepts appointments as arbitrator.
He acts as mediator or expert determiner. He is a member of Fountain Court Chambers with chambers in Singapore and London.
He has been published in the areas of contract, company law, equity, and arbitration including as co-author of A Practical Guide to Investment Treaties – Asia Pacific (Lexis Nexis) and Decoding International Arbitration.
Kanaga is an Adjunct Professor at the UWA Law School, teaching International Commercial Arbitration. He was a founding director of the Perth Centre for Energy and Resources Arbitration, now part of ACICA. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.
He has degrees from UWA - B. Juris (Hons), LLB (Hons); Oxford University - BCL (with First Class Honours and the Rupert Cross Prize), and Harvard Law School - LLM.