Danny McFadden
Managing Director, CEDR Asia Pacific.
Danny has been a CEDR Director since 2004 and is dually qualified as a lawyer both in Australia and the UK. He has been involved in negotiation, conflict resolution training, mediation and international business for over 20 years. After completing his Masters in Commercial Law, specializing in dispute resolution and international trade, Danny worked in the UK furthering his career in international dispute resolution. Now based in Hong Kong, and as a CEDR Accredited Mediator, Danny mediates regularly in the commercial, international trade, property and workplace mediation sectors with a particular expertise in cross-cultural / multinational disputes.
Danny is a fluent speaker of both Mandarin Chinese and Indonesian. Before entering the legal profession he worked throughout Asia and has managed a number of businesses providing commercial services to international clients. The experience of running his own businesses in Australia and Asia means Danny fully appreciates the underpinnings of the business environment. He has worked with people of all nationalities and has a clear understanding of the dynamics of mediating and arbitrating across national boundaries.
He has worked to develop CEDR's capacity to offer cross-cultural mediation and his efforts have resulted in CEDR establishing an international mediation service in Beijing with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) Mediation Centre, which is the largest in Asia, and providing consultancy to the legislatures of Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Danny is a member of CEDR’s international training faculty and has been a Judge at the ICC International Mediation Contest held in Paris for several years.
In recent years Danny has delivered conflict resolution training courses in Azerbaijan, Cameroon, China, Guyana, Vietnam, the UK and Kazakhstan and is a member of CEDR’s training faculty. He is in demand as a speaker and has presented papers on ADR and conflict resolution at conferences in China, Hong Kong, Ireland, USA, UK, Poland, Sweden, Taiwan, Australia and Spain.
In 2008, taking temporary leave of absence from CEDR, Danny joined the United Nations Ombudsman’s Office in New York as an expert adviser on the establishment of a new Mediation Division. His report on the design integrated conflict resolution systems formed part of the terms of reference for mediation in the new UN Justice System. In 2009 he spent a further 3 months as the Interim UN Director of Mediation in New York, mediating cases and also assisting in the selection of staff for the new Mediation Division. In 2013 he was again appointed as the World Bank and UN’s Regional Mediator for South East Asia as an on – call mediator and consultant. Danny opened CEDR’s first overseas office in Hong Kong in early 2011 and is developing its dispute resolution practice throughout South East Asia. In 2013 he was invited by the Secretary of Justice Mr Rimsky Yuen to sit on the Hong Kong Steering Committee on Mediation and Mediator Accreditation Committee.
Danny is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, Civil Mediation Council, International Bar Association, World Jurist Association, Asian Lawyers Association, 48 Group, British Expertise and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He is currently serving on Mediator Panels: ICC Paris, United Nations Mediation Division New York, ADR Chambers, CEDR Solve, World Bank Group, HKIAC Hong Kong and CCPIT Mediation Centre Beijing.
