Von Wobeser y Sierra SC

Has been hired by Grupo Modelo having acted for one of its rivals in the past

Von Wobeser y Sierra’s international arbitration practice is one of the best options in Mexico – thanks partly to the impressive international profile of the firm’s founder, Claus von Wobeser.

On top of multiple bar association roles, von Wobeser is a former vice president of the ICC Court and is regularly seen arbitrating commercial and investor-state disputes. He has lately been on ICSID panels hearing claims against Mozambique, Hungary, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela. In addition, he has sat alone in a rare ICSID conciliation proceeding filed by Equatorial Guinea against CMS Energy Corporation.

The arbitration and litigation practice is headed by Marco Tulio Venegas, who has helped to build a team of around 14 lawyers versed in arbitration. Adrián Magallanes, who was promoted to partner in 2013, is considered a rising star.

Who uses it?

Around 70% of its clients are from the US, Germany and Asia (especially Japan). Foreign companies often retain the firm as counsel or Mexican law experts in major disputes involving Mexico’s national oil company Pemex, electricity utility CFE and other state entities.

It has advised construction companies ICA and KBR and other clients including BMW, Siemens, Mitsui Group, Mitsubishi and the Coca-Cola Company. British American Tobacco instructed the firm for a US$300 million dispute with a Japanese joint venture partner. Meanwhile, Anheuser-Busch InBev used it in a substantial case brought by Mexico’s Grupo Modelo.

Track record

Anheuser-Busch won the arbitration with Grupo Modelo – prompting the boss to take the team on a night out. “When I received the award, I was compelled to find the arbitration team and celebrate,” von Wobeser says.

The firm secured a win for Mexican client ICA in a multimillion-dollar claim regarding the construction of a hydroelectric project. It also helped ICA to settle an ICC arbitration worth US$450 million over the alleged wrongful termination of a contract for the construction of a port terminal on Mexico’s Pacific coast.

In 2015, the firm helped Siemens and South Korea’s SK Engineering & Construction settle a bitter dispute with Pemex over a refinery upgrade, with the state entity agreeing to pay US$295 million. The dispute had given rise to a decade-long ICC arbitration and a final award worth almost US$600 million, which Von Wobeser y Sierra helped to defend from attacks in the Mexican courts.

Claus von Wobeser provided expert testimony on Mexican law on behalf of KBR in another long-running dispute with Pemex over the construction of two offshore gas platforms. He gave evidence in the arbitration, which ended in a US$300 million award in KBR’s favour in 2009, and in New York enforcement proceedings – generating a precedent on the ability of US courts to enforce annulled awards. Pemex finally paid US$435 million to satisfy the award in 2017.

Von Wobeser continues to be one of the most in-demand arbitrators in Latin America. He chaired an UNCITRAL panel sitting in The Hague which awarded a former subsidiary of Petrobras and its partners US$515 million in a dispute with Ecuador over two nationalised oil projects in the Amazon. The award was issued in early 2018.

The firm obtained a favourable award in ICC proceedings for an independent energy producer in a dispute with CFE over the termination of a power purchase agreement. The client obtained 88% of the amount claimed in damages and lost profits, and the termination was revoked.

In 2015, it helped a group of shareholders in Mexican insurer Seguros Argos win emergency relief against Dutch insurance group Aegon at the ICC, requiring it to comply with certain shareholder obligations – before leading the clients to victory in the ensuing arbitration.

In another ICC case, involving a claim of over US$100 million, it helped IEnova (a joint venture between California’s Sempra Energy and Pemex) settle a dispute with Italian-Argentine engineering group Techint over the construction of a 220-kilometre ethane pipeline in southern Mexico.

Recent events

Grupo Modelo evidently admired Von Wobeser y Sierra’s work for Anheuser-Busch because, in 2018, it retained the firm’s services to defend it in ICC proceedings brought by solar company X-Elio. The dispute arose out of the cancellation agreement to supply clean energy to Grupo Modelo’s production facilities, with X-Elio claiming damages and lost profits of more than US$30 million, but the firm successfully saw the matter dismissed.

The firm also obtained an injunction in favour of Grupo Modelo, freezing the assets of a Mexican beer distributor with which it is arbitrating a US$50 million dispute over an alleged breach of contract.

In another case against Pemex, the firm clinched a favourable settlement for a Dutch oil rig company in an ICC dispute worth US$180 million over the installation of oil platforms that involved parallel administrative law litigation before the Mexican courts.  

Client comment

Mark Lowes, litigation vice president at Houston-based at KBR, praised Von Wobeser as “a very good and reliable counsel and expert.”

“They were 100% involved in the case,” a senior executive at one of Mexico’s largest infrastructure companies has previously said of the firm. “They rapidly absorbed key information, such as dates, the actors involved and even technical aspects related to civil engineering and ports operation. My impression is that they were totally committed.”