Professional notice
New in 2011. Nestor Nestor is regularly ranked by legal directories as a top-tier firm for dispute resolution in Romania, with practice head Ana Diculescu-Sova and partner Simona Neagu singled out as effective advocates.
- Pending cases as counsel:
- 12
- Value of pending counsel work:
- US$1 billion
- Treaty cases:
- 1
- No. of lawyers sitting as arbitrator:
- 1
The practice's roots extend to the communist era when the father of one of the firm's founders helped establish the first institutional arbitration body - known as the 1953 committee. It was attached to the Romanian Chamber of Commerce. The faith in arbitration that that committee helped to create has led to widespread use of arbitration by Romanian businesses and a number of more modern arbitral bodies to meet that demand, of which the Court of International Commercial Arbitration – at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Romania is perhaps the best konwn. Its current president, Viorel Mihai Ciobanu, is counsel at Nestor Nestor. Ciobanu, a former constitutional court judge and a professor at the University of Bucharest, joined the firm in 2008. Another recent addition is partner Sorina Cretu, a lateral hire from Stoica & Asociatii (one of its few serious rivals in the local market).
The firm has one investment treaty claim on the go, acting alongside Freshfields on behalf of the Romanian government in the long-running Micula state aid case at ICSID, where the damages claimed are more than €500 million. Otherwise, its work is mostly contract-based, with clients including energy producer Electrocentrale Bucuresti, investment fund Bluehouse Capital, Dutch consultancy Vapro, and US construction group Bechtel. In a notable win in 2008, Sorina Cretu successfully defended British engineering group JacobsGibb against a motorway repair claim by a Romanian state entity.
With a team of 145 lawyers and consultants and a staff of 75 employees, offices in Bucharest, Timisoara, Brasov, Cluj-Napoca and Craiova, Nestor Nestor Diculescu Kingston Petersen (NNDKP), founded in 1990, provides integrates legal services in all business fields to companies operating in Romania.
When deciding to create and develop a special department centered on solving matters the arbitration we had as a model the dedication of the antecessors, amongst whom Prof. Ion Nestor, acted even from 1953 together with Prof. Octavian Capatana, Ion Bacanu, Savelly Zilberstein, Ilie Stoenescu and Tudor R. Popescu, as founding members of the Arbitration Committee, the first institutional arbitration body for foreign trade, attached to the Romanian Chamber of Commerce. With the intention to continue their work and abiding their high standard of professionalism and eminence we bring to life once more their ambitious dreams, of equity and justice.
In consolidating our existing team, in 2008, we have joined to it the expertise of Prof. Ciobanu, currently the President of the Court of Commercial Arbitration attached to the a Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, highly appreciated arbitrator and professor of civil procedural law at the Bucharest University, currently sitting as arbitrator in a number of domestic and international arbitration cases, and the expertise of a leading attorney acting in the field of arbitration, Ms. Sorina Cretu (former partner to a highly appreciated law firm on the Romanian market). Our aim is to we bring together, the academic perspective with the practitioner’s perspective, the legal theory and invaluable theoretical approach with the pragmatism and experience in offering to our clients an overall perspective and an integrated service.
The arbitration practice and the arbitration team is getting stronger every day creating with each new case a brand for excellence and professionalism.
No. of pending cases: 10
Value of all claims: Over US$1 billion
No. of appearances in Who’s Who Legal: - (-)
No. of treaty cases: 1
No. of arbitrator appointments (no. as chair or sole):
Prof. Ciobanu – over 400 starting with 1990 out of which over 80 within the last two years (over 40 as chairman)
Names to know:
- Prof. Dr. Viorel Mihai Ciobanu - Of Counsel, NNDKP
- Manuela Nestor - Senior Partner, NNDKP
- Sorina Cretu –Partner, NNDKP
- Simona Neagu – Partner, NNDKP