Schellenberg Wittmer

The Swiss firm was defending Russia in a US$10 billion claim by a Ukrainian state entity as war broke out

Created in 2000 through the merger of Schellenberg & Haissly in Zurich and Brunschwig Wittmer in Geneva, Schellenberg Wittmer married two firms already in sync when it came to thinking about international arbitration.

In Geneva, Laurent Lévy and Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler built a team with sufficient horsepower to compete for non-Swiss work. Meanwhile, in Zurich, Georg von Segesser and colleagues thought that diversity and more international work was the way to go.

Although those partners have since left for their own boutiques, they and their successors have built a team with unusual equipoise between Zurich and Geneva, a mixture of foreign-trained and Swiss lawyers and an emphasis on oral advocacy.

Since 2015, the practice has been chaired by Geneva-based partner Elliott Geisinger, an honorary president of the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA). The vice chairs of the practice are Philippe Bärtsch in Geneva, another active ASA member, and Christopher Boog, who is a vice president of the Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution and divides his time between Zurich and Singapore. Both have been at the firm since 2003.  

A new generation of partners was promoted in 2019, including Julie Raneda in Singapore and Anya George and Anna Kozmenko in Zurich. Katherine Bell was also promoted to partner and made head of the construction practice in Zurich in 2022.

Schellenberg Wittmer reckons to be one of the few firms in Switzerland to field common law-trained advocates who do nothing but arbitration. In fact, the firm believes that among its competitors only Lalive matches it in terms of size, diversity and expertise of the arbitration team.

The team has taken part in cases governed by English, Polish, Czech, UAE, Thai, Senegalese, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, Philippine and Cameroonian law, none of which was heard in Switzerland.

Network

The firm is one of the few Swiss arbitration practices held in equal regard in the French and German-speaking parts of the country, with offices in Zurich and Geneva. In 2014, it made its first expansion into Asia, opening an office in Singapore.

Who uses it?

Clients from the pharmaceuticals, construction, and oil and gas sectors are common, the firm says. Alpiq, Bayer Pharma, Ceylan, GE, Gucci, Ingersoll Rand, Johnson & Johnson, Hungary’s MOL, France’s Medex Petroleum, Procter & Gamble, Samsung, Siemens, SGS, Watson Pharmaceuticals, Merck and Orange/France Télécom are recent examples.

Geisinger has co-counselled a construction consortium including Sacyr and Webuild in ICC cases relating to the expansion of the Panama Canal.

The firm has also acted for states such as Russia and Libya and state-owned entities including Algeria’s national oil and gas company Sonatrach.

Track record

In 2016, the firm helped Hungarian oil and gas producer MOL to defeat a billion-dollar claim brought by Croatia. As part of a co-counsel team, it persuaded a tribunal to reject allegations that the client paid bribes to a former prime minister. The same team also defended the award in the Swiss courts.

Schellenberg Wittmer acted for a major pharmaceutical in a US$210 million ICC dispute over non-conforming drug products. The client won on the merits and was awarded a significant part of the damages claimed, plus costs.

The team has had a string of successes defending awards in set-aside proceedings before the Swiss Supreme Court. For example, it preserved a €220 million award in favour of Orange and a €91 million Energy Charter Treaty award in favour of a group of solar power investors against Spain.

The firm says a significant number of its cases end in settlement before arbitration or early in the proceedings. One such settlement was in 2013 for Merck in a US$2 billion dispute with a major US drug maker.

Some of the firm’s most eye-catching work has come in cases at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), particularly for Russian athletes challenging their lifetime bans from Olympic competition for alleged participation in state-sponsored doping.

It also overturned a Chinese swimmer’s eight-year doping ban after showing that the tribunal chair, a former Italian foreign minister, had shown bias in tweets criticising Chinese dog meat eating practices and referencing skin colour.

Recent events

Schellenberg had been advising Russia in the quantum phase of a US$10 billion treaty claim brought by Ukraine’s national oil and gas company Naftogaz (Russia having refused to appear during the liability phase). The dispute saw a hearing in the Peace Palace in The Hague in February 2022 that was overshadowed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In the following month, Schellenberg confirmed to GAR that it has “decided to terminate its mandates for the Russian Federation and state entities” and that it was “taking steps to exit these relationships in accordance with applicable rules of professional conduct”.

Schellenberg’s work for Russia had included acting in a Swiss court challenge to a US$5 billion Energy Charter Treaty award in favour of Yukos Capital.

It has also been acting for the International Boxing Federation in a series of arbitrations over its annual congress and elections and for a Qatari sports official.

It helped Madrid-based pharmaceutical broker Nutra Essential defeat an €18 million Swiss Rules arbitration brought by Polish pharmaceuticals wholesaler Sequoia. The dispute over a licensing agreement for over-the-counter products was dismissed for procedural reasons.

Other work includes representing a German client in a US$770 million ICC construction dispute with a Kazakh counterparty in relation to a ferroalloy processing plant. The firm is acting for another German client in an ICC case over the construction of a metal processing plant in Russia.

Client comment

One client used the firm to enforce a Netherlands Arbitration Institute award before the Swiss Supreme Court and praises its ability to provide “brief, accurate, targeted explanations”. The client says that the ratio of results to fees is the best his company has found in Switzerland and singles out partner George and counsel Benno Strub in Zurich for praise.

Michael Barry of IMAR Trading & Contracting in Qatar used the firm for a multimillion-dollar arbitration over a large construction project in Abu Dhabi. He praises Bärtsch for providing “great leadership” and Anne-Carole Cremades for ensuring the accuracy and relevancy of the final arguments.