The guide to specialist arbitration firms 2015 - LO Baptista

The internot ionol jo urno l of
commerc iol o nd treo ty orbit rotion
The guide to specialist
arbitration firms 2015
Fully revised and updated 8th annual edition
G A R1 00 20 15
"detail-oricntc d" wo rk and advice wh ile always keeping the big pictu re
in rnind : " tha t co mbination allows management to focus on the gen eral
direction of the dispute and its solution, wh ile being fully aware of the
smaller - but not less important - details of the case," he notes. "We
needed legal advisers wit h proven international experience in a number
of fields, w hich we found at Kirkland."
Naguib Sawiris, execu tive chairman ofEgyptian telcoms company
OTMT, also highlights the "commercial sense" of the lead partners that
have helped him and his company in several matters . Rajinder Bassi
and Chris C olbridge were " certainly mo re in command" than other
L O Baptista Schmidt Valois
Miranda Ferreira Agel
Value of p ending c ounsel work:
Current arb itrator appointments:
52
Pending cas es as counsel :
US$6 billion
10
Treaty cases:
8 (of whic h 5 are
os-sole ar chair)
2
Lawyers sitting as arbitrator:
This yo ung Vien nese firm makes its GAR 100 d e b ut this
year
Konrad & Partn ers was founded
•
US$25 billion
3
31 (of whic h 11 are
as sole or chair)
4
Lawye rs sitting as arbitrator :
Konrad & Partners
Current arb itra tar appointments:
41
Trea ty case s:
counsel, he not es.
Value o f pending counsel work :
2
People in Who 's Who Legal:
Pending cases a s counsel :
w hen Christian Konrad left
Freshfields Bru ckhaus D eringers
Vienn a office to open his own
bo utique in 2009.
Konrad's practice has an emphasis on enginee ring, construction and energy infrastructure
cases, as well as public int ernational law. He also
sits as an arbitrator, and is a m emb er of the pan e!
C hristian Konrad
of various international institutions, induding
the Czech Arbitration C ourt, the Netherlands Arbitration Institute, the
Kuala Lumpur Regional Arbitration Centre~. ~he Indonesian Nation al
Board of Arbitration, and the Court of &bitration of the Ice!and
Chamber of C ommerce, among others.
Since its foundation , the firm has opened additional offices in
London, Pragu e, Bratislava and Skopj e, and has a particularly strong
practice in central, sou th and eastern Europe .
It now has 20 lawyers on staff, including, alongside Konrad, technology disput es specialist Phili pp Pet ers, w ho becam e a par tner in 2012 .
The firm holds back on naming clients, but it is currently advising
companies in tbe hydraulic power generation, real estate development,
steel piping supp ly and power station supply sectors at the ICe. It was
also involved, thou gh ultimately unsuccessfu l, in a high-profile CAS
case in 2012, acting for Austrian tennis player D aniel Kõllerer.
H owever, Konrad & Partners did successfully defend an Austrian
construc tion and engineering company in an arbitration under the
Vienna Rul es arising ou t of a refurbi shment proj ect in South Mrica. It
also reaped succcss for the owners of a pharmaceu ticals company in a
US$255 million post-acquisition dispu te und er Austrian law.
The Bra zifia n firm 's c o-hea d to ok on a leadership role at
th e /C CA this ye ar
T he product of a 2011 merger between São
Paulo-based LO Baptista Advogados Associados
and a R io de Janeiro firm better kno wn for
its oil and gas and infrastru cture work , th e
firm first appeared in the GAR 100 in 2013 .
Its arbitration team is lead by Luiz Olavo
Baptista, M aurício C urv elo de Alm eida Prado
and Adriana Braghetta.
One of the mo st famo us arbitrators in
Adriana Braghetta
Brazil, Baptista is a former chairman of the
World Trade O rganization 's appellate bod y
and a retired professor of inte rnational trade
law at São Paulo U niversity Braghetta took
up the vice -presidency of the Inte rnati on al
C ouncil for C omm ercial Arbi tration in 2014,
having formerly served as chair of the Brazilian
Arbitration C ommittee (CBAr ).
Baptist a has sat on ICSID panels deciding
daims against Egypt, Argentina and Peru . It's
a measure of bis international standing that
Luiz Ola vo Bap tista
w hen Ecuador initiated arare state- to-s tate
arbit ration againsr th e US govern ment in 20 11 over the in ter pretation
of thei r bilateral investm ent treary, Bapti sta was selected to chair th e
tribunal in The H ague that decide d the case. H e also chaired an rCSID
pane! that threw out a co ntract daim by a Spanish-ow ned power
éompany against Peru in 2013, awarding the statc over US $3 rnillion
in costs.
The pr actice now has a broader client base than ks to the merger
with Schmidt Valois Mirand a Ferreira & Agel, a move Latin Lawyer
250 described as "innovative and ambitio us", given the com mo n trend
amo ng Brazilian law firm s is towards "spin-o ffs and splits, and a greater
fragment ation of the market" ,
Other nam es to know inc1ude Guilherme Guerra D'Ar riaga
Schrni dt, a form er member of Shells legal team who sits as an arbitrator
at the Brazilian C hamber of Corporate Arbitration; and R ogério
Miranda, also ex-Shell, who did his LLM at the University ofD undee 's
centre for energy, petroleum and minerallaw and policy.
Who uses it?
Client c ommen t
"This law firm attracts young and bright peopl e,' says Kai Schumacher
ar financial advisory firm AlixPartners: " It is a rising star,'
The firm keeps it cards d ose to its chest whe n it com es to naming
clients. U sers are varied, inc1uding parties in co nstruction, energy,
teleco ms, banking and rnining, as well as govern ment enti ties. It's
kn own to have acted for Brazi1's national developrne n t bank, BNDE5,
Glob al Arbitrali o n Review
99
G/\R l 00 2015
as well as for Angola and its national diamond company, Endiama, in a
pair ofUNCITRAL cases brought by a Portuguese state en tity.
Track record
The firm helped BNDES defeat a US$250 million claim brought by
Ecuadors state power utility Hidropastaza, which concern ed a loan for
a hydropo wer plant (the claim was brought under a 1982 convention
betwe en member states of the Latin American trade inte gration
assoc iatio n) .
It aiso won a US$200 rnillion ICC arbitration that pitched rwo
Brazilian co nstruction co mpanies against a European energy company.
Recen.t events
The firm continues to act for Angol a and Endiama in parallel
investment and commercial claims brought by Sociedade Portuguesa
de Empreendimentos over a diamond con cession in the country.
The arbitrations are seatcd in the Angolan capital, Luand a, and have
also spawn ed ant i-a rbi tration injun ctions and a lawsuit against three
arbitrators.
The firm has also had a hand in numerous ICC matters involving
Brazilian partie s, and taking place in seats around the world. One such
case, relating to Brazil's financi aI services industry, hinged on the sale
and purchase of shares and their liabilities. The case is wo rth around
1.5 billion reais (more than US $560 rnillion ).
In 2014, the firm added six young lawyers to irs arbitration group,
taking its total of dedi cated arbitrati on practiti on ers to 19.
Lalive
Peo ple in Who 's Who legal:
Pending c ases os counsel :
Volue of pending counsel work :
10
57
US$24 billion*
9
Treaty cases:
Current arbitrat or appointments:
Lawyers sitting as arbitrator:
98 (of w hic h 63 a re
as sole or chair)
13
"excludes one state-to-state matter worth US$263 billion
Pierre loJive possed owoy in eor/y 2014. The Swiss firm
hanaurs his memary wi th the cantinuing high quo/ity o i its
wark
Lalive is one of th e oldest international arbitration practices in th e wo rld, having operated in
Geneva sinc e th e 19505.The firm takes its name
from rwo brorh ers. The elder , j ean-Flavien,
was its founder; he passed away in 2012 aged
97. Its reputation in the field is rnostly down
to Pier re, describ ed in Dealing in Virtue (a
sociological study of private justice in the
comm ercial sphere) as the "grand old man of
Swiss arbitration" .
Domitille Baizeau
Aminoíl. It also acted in early ICSID cases and state- to-state dispute s
Globo l Arb itra tion Revie w
a four-year term as presiden t of th e Swiss
Arbitration Association - is the firrn's figurehead
today. Under him, it continues to rule the roost
in Switzerla nd, with arguably the largest team
Bernd Ehle
of full-time arbitratio n specialists of any Swiss
firm - including such well- respected figures as
Veij o He iskanen, M atthi as Scherer, D ornitille
Baizeau and Bernd Ehle .
Long based in Geneva, it is also now
increasingly active in Zurich, opening an office
there in 201O.As of early 2014, this hou ses wellkn own co mmercial arbitration duo, Ph ilipp
H abegger and M arc Veit, form erly of Walder
Wyss.
In terrn s of strategy, the firm pnonuses
global co mme rcial and investrnent cases: that is,
wo rk w ith no strong nexus to Swit zerlan d. It
has assern bled a multinational , multilingu al team
of lawyers, similar to those found at Shearman
& Sterling and freshíiclds Br uckh aus D erin ger,
w her e ma ny Lalive lawyers trained. It seeks very
little co-counsel work of th e type some Sw iss
firm s regularly und ertake.
It also has a strong focus on public internationallaw, in wh ich Hei skanen has particular
expe rtise.
Teresa Giovannini
VeijoHeiskanen
Network
As well as offices in Geneva and Zurich, the
firm has had a presence in the Qatari capital of
D oha since 2006.
Who uses it?
Lalive is rescrved about naming clients, but it's
known that Polish m obile operator PT C, Swiss
energy trader EFT and Turki sh state-owned oil
pipelin e company Bot as are clients, as is US
tobacco group Philip Morris in irs con troversial
ICSID claim against Uruguay over plain packaging laws for toba cco produc ts.
It also has numerous state clients: it has
defended Ecuado r, R om ania and Tur key against
investmenr treaty claims and o ther matters.
It is heavily involved in Eu ropean gas
pri cing arbitr ations.
Track record
Under his leadership, members of the firm participated in som e
of the first "t ru e" int ernational com m ercial arbitrations that followed nationalisations by petrol- states, in cluding Sapphire International
Petroleum v National Iranian Oil Compal/Y, Texaco v Libya and Kuwait v
before the ICj.
Pierre Lalive passed away in early 2014 aged
91, having wo n a GAR lifetime achievement
award in 2012 .
Michael Schn eider - who chaired thc
working group charged with revising the
UNCITRAL rules and recentl y completed
Joachim Knoll
Matt hiasScherer
In 2013 , a seven-year-Io ng case bro ught by oil
invesror R ompetroI against Lalivcs clien t, R omania, con cluded with
the state escaping any dam ages. The tribunal found th at the state did
incur liability in its handling of a criminal investigation but that the
cIaimant had failed to demon strate any resulting loss or damage.
Schneider, Sch erer and H eiskanen led the work on the case, along
w ith an o ther GAR 100 firm, Roma nias Leaua & Asociatii. Thc two
firrns continue to defend the state in ano th er case at reSIDo
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