Susan D. Maples

Partner

Susan Dyer Maples specializes in high-stakes, complex international arbitrations and corporate transactions. Her background and experience includes multibillion-dollar disputes and negotiations, including contract and treaty-based arbitrations. She has represented clients in over 30 countries in energy, mining, entertainment, infrastructure, and development disputes and negotiations. Her clients include publicly listed corporations, entrepreneurs, privately held companies, sovereign states and state-owned entities, and public international organizations.

Ms. Maples regularly works with financial models and commercial experts in disputes and deals for public and private clients. She has been a legal and fiscal expert for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and has worked with and represented other public international organizations for over 15 years.

Audit Advice and Representation

More recently, Ms. Maples has developed expertise in negotiations and disputes concerning audits, including regarding the scope of audit provisions and the procedures by which audits may take place.

Energy and Natural Resources Transactions

In addition to her energy disputes experience in areas such as cost recovery, profit petroleum sharing, stabilization, renewable energy schemes, geologic data sharing, and title disputes, Ms. Maples has advised on numerous corporate transactions in the energy, oil and gas, and mineral resource sectors. For example, she has led PSC negotiations and renegotiations; negotiated farm-ins with major IOCs and juniors; designed competitive tenders for licensing rights in the oil & gas and mining sectors; conducted legal framework assessments; assisted in multiple cross-border pipeline negotiations and feasibility assessments, including the drafting of supporting documents such as inter-governmental agreements and host government agreements; supported various governments in maritime boundary disputes; assisted in refinery acquisition transactions and crude oil sale transactions; and negotiated mineral development agreements and mineral title disputes.

Ms. Maples was recently recognized as a Leading Individual in the Legal 500: EMEA 2024 for Kazakhstan Energy and Natural Resources.

Highly Regulated Industries

Most recently, Ms. Maples is advising clients in other highly regulated industries, such as online entertainment. She advises clients on joint ventures, risks and mitigations in these sectors, and how to effectively work with Governments in highly regulated industries.

Academia and Writing

Prior to joining Curtis, Ms. Maples was a Visiting Assistant Professor and Andrews Kurth Energy Scholar at the University of Houston Law Center and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow and Professor at Columbia Law School. She was a Natural Resource Governance Fellow in the Office of the Legal Advisor to the President of Liberia, Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, in Monrovia, Liberia.

Ms. Maples was a co-author of Mining Contracts: How to Read and Understand Them and Oil Contracts: How to Read and Understand Them.

Education

Columbia University School of Law, J.D.

University of Georgia, B.A., Philosophy, summa cum laude

Admitted to Practice

New York