BACKGROUND
Noella is a Partner at Oraro & Company Advocates and a recognised dispute resolution and arbitration expert. She specialises in the tracing and recovery of assets, commercial litigation, employment and labour disputes, and shareholder disputes but is well regarded for her international arbitration and insolvency & restructuring expertise.
She is ranked by Chambers Global in Dispute Resolution with clients lauding her for being “extremely professional and approachable,” and others saying “her level of subject matter knowledge, especially corporate law matters, is exceptional”. Legal 500 also recognised her in the 2021 and 2020 rankings as a Next Generation Partner, with sources saying she is ‘responsive, conducts very good and well thought out research, and is approachable and witty.’
Noella was recently recognized by Nairobi Legal Awards as one of the Top 10 Women Lawyers in the Litigation Practitioners Category and as one of “Africa’s 50 Most Promising Young Arbitrators 2020” by the Association of Young Arbitrators.
Noella is an eloquent speaker. She spoke on various topics around International Arbitration at the International Arbitration Conference in Kigali, Rwanda in 2017, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2018 and Nairobi, Kenya in 2019. She has also shared her legal insights across the globe including in the United Kingdom and Austria.
She holds a Master’s degree (LLM) from the University of Cape Town and a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya and a Diploma in Law from the Kenya School of Law.
EXPERIENCE
- Advising a major public data communications carrier on potential legal options and remedies under a shareholder’s agreement against directors and three (3) other parties for their breach of trust and fiduciary obligations as well as potential fraudulent actions
- Advising a major American private equity fund on its legal options and remedies against former directors and shareholders of a leading East African civil engineering and construction company. The matter concerned a shareholders’ agreement, a convertible note debt for equity swap, a share pledge agreement and personal guarantees with a view of recovering a LCIA arbitral award of USD 23.2 million.
- Advising a non-profit organisation on legal options and remedies available to it following the mismanagement and misapplication of its investment in a local company
- Advising and acting for a Kenyan pension scheme in defending a judgement by the retirement benefits tribunal for the sum of in excess of KES 7 billion (USD 70 million) by former employees of Telkom Kenya Limited as being the total of their unpaid retirement dues
- Advising a network of private schools founded and funded by the Melinda & Bill Gates foundation regarding the classification of the schools and ments of the threats by the Ministry of Education to close the schools on the alleged grounds that they have failed to meet the minimum requirement under the Basic Education Act, 2013
