Centre For Economic Security, Disputes And Investment
Pakistan's Closed-Door Platform For The Questions That Decide Deals At The Intersection Of Investment, Economic And National Security, And The Disputes That Arise Between Them. Small Rooms. Senior People. Chatham House Rule.
CEDI examines what happens when investment meets state power.
CEDI is an independent, non-partisan intelligence and convening platform, bringing regulators, corporates, banks, and senior counsel into the same closed-door room around one question: when does state intervention in an investment become a dispute, and how does it get resolved?
Pakistan attracts strategic capital without a formal foreign-investment screening law of its own, yet Pakistani-linked deals stay exposed to screening abroad, and to a live dispute record.
No platform in Pakistan convenes government, business, and senior legal advisers in one room, off the record, at implementation level. Nobody convenes the deal.
focus areas
PFIG 27 attendee cap
Founding Patron seat
How Investment Becomes A Dispute
Six links in a single chain. CEDI's three focus areas sit at different points along it, not in three separate boxes.
Investment
Economic & National Security
State Regulation, Screening & Sanctions
Investor–State Conflict
Investment Disputes
Arbitration & Enforcement
The CEDI Model
CEDI is built on a closed-door convening format designed for Pakistan's deal economy specifically, not adapted from a template built for another market. Four design rules govern everything CEDI runs.
01
Small rooms, hard caps.
Roundtables of 15–25; the flagship forum capped at 70. A seat is valuable because seats are scarce.
02
Strict Chatham House Rule; no public sessions.
No press, no recording, no attributed quotation. Officials speak as practitioners, not spokespeople. Public visibility comes only through short, non-attributed market notes.
03
The triangular room.
Every session seats at least one government or regulatory voice, one business decision-maker, and one senior legal or advisory voice, or it is not run.
04
Implementation level only.
Faculty must have worked the issue: closed the deal, argued the case, run the review. Doctrine without a transaction attached does not make the programme.
What CEDI Runs
A permanent platform with five interlocking products, built to generate influence, intelligence, and revenue simultaneously, not a one-off event vehicle. Deliberately not in Year 1: a standalone multi-day arbitration conference, a five-track programme, a subscription dashboard, or an executive-training arm. Each is deferred until the corresponding Year 1 product oversubscribes.
PFIG 27 Forum + Banquet
The anchor: five sessions spanning CEDI's three focus areas, closing with an invitation-only banquet and dinner speech
Annual; 70 cap; Islamabad
Pakistan Arbitration & Investment Day
Co-located with PFIG 27, sharing its venue, international faculty, and curation standards
Annual; 60–80; co-located with PFIG
CEDI Arbitration Roundtables
Enforcement of foreign awards and investor-state exposure, twice a year in Karachi and Lahore
2× per year; 20–25; Karachi/Lahore
CEDI Leaders Roundtables
Small-group sessions on live implementation issues across Economic Security, Strategic Investment, and Investment Disputes
2× per year; 15–20; rotating
CEDI Market Notes & Pakistan Arbitration Note
The intelligence layer: non-attributed post-event summaries and the annual enforcement tracker
Post-event + annual
Roadmap
Phase 1
Q3 2026
Founding conversations with prospective patrons and partners; international partnership and advisory arrangements finalised; stakeholder engagement with SIFC, BOI, CCP, SBP, and SECP begins; website transition from CECI to CEDI.
Phase 2
Nov 2026
Proof-of-concept CEDI Roundtable (12–15 persons, Islamabad, Chatham House): ‘Pakistani deals under foreign screening regimes.’ Private 2-page summary within 48 hours, the artefact all partnership conversations are built on.
Phase 3
Q1 2027
CEDI Arbitration Roundtable I, Karachi: ‘Enforcement of foreign awards in Pakistan, the state of play.’ Partnership positions closed; venue contracted; PFIG speaker invitations issued.
Phase 4
April 2027
PFIG 27 (Islamabad) plus the co-located Pakistan Arbitration & Investment Day. Private summaries in 72 hours; public market note in two weeks; renewals open.
Phase 5
H2 2027
Arbitration Roundtable II, Lahore; a Leaders Roundtable on a live economic-security or investment-screening issue; the first annual Pakistan Arbitration Note published.
Phase 6
2028
PFIG 28; the Arbitration Day expands to a full day only if the 2027 half-day oversubscribes; intelligence subscriptions opened to non-partners.
Trust & Credibility
Governance And Integrity
CEDI is independent and non-partisan.
Partners receive access and visibility; programme content, speaker selection, and research outputs remain under the convener's editorial control.
The Chatham House Rule is structurally enforced.
No press, no recording, no attributed quotation, no publication beyond agreed non-attributed summaries.
An advisory group reviews every programme for balance.
Including at least one former senior official, one academic, and one international practitioner, before invitations are issued.
Government and regulatory participants attend without fee.
And without any sponsorship linkage.
CEDI's factual outputs are verification-led.
Claims about Pakistani law reflect enacted law as it stands: for example, the pending status of comprehensive data-protection legislation and of arbitration-law reform is stated as pending, not assumed.
Explore CEDI
Focus Areas
Investment Disputes & Arbitration, Economic & National Security, and Strategic Investment & Investment Risk, each with its own Year 1 footprint.
PFIG 27
The flagship forum: April 2027, Islamabad, capped at 70, under strict Chatham House Rule.
Investment Disputes & Arbitration
The CEDI Arbitration Roundtable series and the Pakistan Arbitration & Investment Day.