Mannheimer Swartling

The firm at the top of the Swedish arbitration market

Sweden has blessed and encouraged private dispute resolution for years (since its first civil code). A twist of fate in the 1970s made Stockholm a hub for international arbitration, after the United States and USSR decided the SCC would be a good place to settle trade disputes. In the 1980s, China followed suit. Even today, local companies prefer arbitration over litigation for local disputes.

Swedish law firms have arbitration in their DNA – and none more so than Mannheimer Swartling.

The firm’s members have been at the heart of local and foreign arbitral institutions for years: Mannheimer Swartling lawyers represented Sweden on the UNCITRAL working groups that developed the Model Law, and still represent the country’s interests before the commission now. The firm also acted for a number of US oil companies before the Iran–US Claims Tribunal.

The arbitration team is a dominant element within the firm as a whole. Last year it was appointed to an official panel of advisers for China in investment disputes – the only foreign civil law firm on the list. It has often shown itself to be the best-performing team from a civil law jurisdiction in the GAR 30.

Although long-time team leader Kaj Hobér (Sweden’s foremost arbitration academic and arbitrator) left the firm in 2014 to join a barristers’ chambers in London, there are still plenty of leading lights left. They include Jakob Ragnwaldh, a member of the SCC Arbitration Institute’s board; Nils Eliasson, a recently elected member of the HKIAC council; and Robin Oldenstam, a member of the GAR editorial board and head of the Swedish Arbitration Association, to name but three.

Network

There are key people in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö, Hong Kong and Frankfurt. Three divide their time between Sweden and Moscow.

Who uses it?

The firm’s a little shy about mentioning clients and, frankly, they’re a mixed bunch, from energy firms to Italian goods makers. A common theme is usually a Russian, Chinese or Nordic angle. Some clients it’s known to have advised include Vattenfall, Endesa, Stena RoRo, Edison, Norwegian chemicals company Yara and Lithuania’s energy ministry.

Track record

The firm helped RosInvestCo, a UK subsidiary of distressed debt fund Elliot Associates, win a landmark investment treaty claim against the Russian government over the expropriation of its shares in Yukos Oil Company. The damages won were quite small – US$3.5 million – but it was the first time Russia had been held liable for its treatment of Yukos (however, the award was subsequently set aside by the Swedish courts).

It was also the firm that Sweden’s state-owned power company Vattenfall turned to for the first-ever ICSID claim against Germany (as co-counsel with German firm Luther). The two firms have since been retained by Vattenfall for a new ICSID claim over Germany’s closure of nuclear power stations in the wake of the Fukushima crisis in Japan.

The firm can’t talk about much of its commercial work, but it is reputed to be fairly successful. In one public matter, the team helped Swedish mobile operator Tele2 defeat a US$728 million claim brought by a British Virgin Islands entity concerning an M&A transaction. The New York-seated ICDR arbitration ended in 2011 with the dismissal of all claims against Tele2 and a costs award of US$2 million in its favour. The award was later upheld at the seat.

In 2013, Mannheimer Swartling prevailed on some of its claims for a major South European energy company in an UNCITRAL arbitration under a production-sharing agreement, also winning costs (Volterra Fietta was on the other side). It was also instructed by a major European gas supplier for a couple of cases worth several hundred million euros.

Recent events

As mentioned above, in late 2014 Hobér left the firm to become a member of London set 3 Verulam Buildings, after 21 years in the Mannheimer Swartling partnership.

Months before he left, he joined the counsel team for a group of Spanish minority shareholders in Yukos who won an SCC award in 2012, and helped successfully defend them against a declaratory judgment action brought by Russia in the Swedish courts.

In November, the firm was instructed by Ioan Micula, who, along with his brother Viorel, is bringing an ICSID claim against Romania over its failure to police the alcohol black market. The brothers won a US$250 million award against Romania using different counsel at the centre in 2012, and Mannheimer Swartling is now representing Ioan in annulment proceedings filed by the state.

Ragnwaldh was elected vice-chair of the executive board of the European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (EFILA), a think-tank that was established to represent the voice of users of investment arbitration at the EU level. Mannheimer Swartling is one of five firms that founded the group.