Peter Sahlas
Attorney, Affiliate
Peter Sahlas, Senior Counsel at Amsterdam & Partners and affiliated attorney at Minkowski & Partners, is a member of the New York Bar and foreign legal consultant in Quebec. He works with Minkowski & Partners on foreign elements of multijurisdictional cases, notably involving France and the United States.
He has a robust criminal defence practice in sensitive, high-stakes international cases, including most recently in cryptocurrency-related matters. He is experienced in complex international disputes arising from restructurings, bankruptcies, expropriations, and nationalizations. He advises sovereign states, corporations, and individual entrepreneurs on international legal cooperation in civil, commercial, and criminal matters, including extradition, police collaboration, asylum, and protection of human rights against arbitrary detention, torture, and judicial corruption.
Beginning in 1996, he worked in Moscow through Western diplomatic initiatives providing expertise on Russian legal reforms, notably the new Russian Civil Code and Russia’s integration into the Hague Conference on Private International Law. For a decade, he served as a key Western interlocutor with the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
He was the inaugural Executive Programme Director at the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation in 2002 and has served since 2024 as Chair of its Board of Directors.
He holds a degree in international relations from the University of Toronto and two law degrees from McGill University. He works regularly with academic experts, international institutions, and non-governmental organizations, and maintains a pro bono practice in human rights.
