Contacts:
Daniel E. González, Miami
Charles C. Adams Jr., Geneva

In today’s global marketplace, companies can become enmeshed in complex commercial disputes virtually anywhere in the world, brought before a wide variety of international tribunals. With 27 offices and strategic locations in 11 global capitals, Hogan & Hartson provides litigation and arbitration advice and services tailored to our clients’ particular markets and needs. Our lawyers have vast courtroom and arbitral experience, having prosecuted and defended disputes throughout the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia. With a team of multilingual and multicultural legal professionals, we serve as lead counsel and try cases in English, Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese.

Our lawyers have in-depth knowledge of the distinct customs, rules and procedures of tribunals throughout the world. Our experience includes practice before the International Chamber of Commerce, the International Centre for Dispute Resolution, the London Court of International Arbitration, the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, and the United Nations Compensation Commission. We frequently appear in forums established in connection with the World Trade Organization, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights.

The firm regularly represents international clients in U.S. federal and state courts in matters that cover the range of our litigation activities and experience. This breadth enables us to provide a degree of legal representation that is exceptional among law firms.

Related Experience

• We represent clients in numerous arbitrations around the world in a wide variety of businesses, from construction and resource disputes to telecommunication and high-tech commercial disputes involving Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, as well as throughout the Americas.
• After winning a preliminary injunction in federal court in New York and two significant partial awards involving claims and counterclaims amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars following trials before an International Chamber of Commerce tribunal in Geneva, Switzerland, we helped one of the world’s largest satellite manufacturers reach a global settlement with its longtime alliance partner that resolved numerous disputes over space satellite manufacturing and marketing ventures.
• At an arbitration governed by Russian substantive law and conducted under United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) rules, our attorneys successfully shielded a Russian governmental entity from potential exposure in excess of $300 million in connection with a complex financing arrangement.
• We successfully defended ALSTOM Power (Switzerland) Ltd. against the $7.7 million commission claim of an Irish offshore company, the commercial representative of ABB Power Ltd. with which ALSTOM merged in 2001, arising out of the award to ALSTOM, in an allegedly biased competition against an entity of its merger partner, of the contract for a hydroelectric project in Morocco. The Tribunal in this Geneva-forum, Swiss law, French-language proceeding dismissed the claim in its entirety, awarding costs and legal fees to ALSTOM.
• We are handling enforcement of a $200 million international arbitration award and collection of the judgment, and are bringing alter-ego claims against individual principals and foreign and domestic companies.
• Representing a domestic purchaser of a foreign financial services business, we obtained and collected upon an eight-figure judgment. In the same case, we obtained a U.S. judgment declaring that two officers of the purchased entity were terminated for cause, under agreements governed by foreign law.
• Litigating the entire case in Portuguese before a Brazilian Court in Sao Paulo, Hogan & Hartson attorneys, on behalf of a U.S. multinational, defeated claims worth $17 million that alleged the breach of a distributorship agreement, as well as other tort-related matters.
• We are representing foreign government entities in disputes over licensing contracts and rights with licensees and sub-licensees.
• On behalf of a leading international high-tech company, our attorneys served as lead counsel to a team of 15 lawyers in an ad hoc arbitration in London, with ancillary proceedings throughout France, which resulted in a $100 million award to our client.
• The firm obtained a motion to dismiss (without any discovery for or against) on behalf of a group of international banks in a class action brought by individuals claiming to be suffering from Gulf War Syndrome. The banks were accused of terrorism, violations of international law, and tortious conduct arising from their role in facilitating letters of credit to companies who supplied materials or facilities that Iraq used to build chemical and biological weapons.
• In a case of first impression for the Supreme Court of Florida, our attorneys convinced the court to dismiss a matter involving two foreign trusts of a prominent family, sending these disputes to Liechtenstein and the Cayman Islands.
• We are handling the appeal of a judgment obtained by a bondholder of defaulted sovereign debt (and have handled other such actions previously that were negotiated to successful resolution).
• We represented a Venezuelan fertilizer company against an Italian contractor in an ICC arbitral dispute arising out of the engineering, procurement, and construction of a fertilizer plant in Venezuela.
• We are currently representing the world’s largest travel booking company in an employment law dispute in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
• We represent a cable television provider in defense of a lawsuit seeking $1 billion in damages and injunctive relief with respect to a series of transactions between several U.S., Central American, and South American cable providers.

• Represented EuroDisney in major construction disputes arising out of the development of the EuroDisneyland Park in Paris. This involved defending 10 major arbitration claims against EuroDisney, representing over $800 million in asserted claim value, all but two of which were settled before the issuance of an arbitral award, and counseling EuroDisney on the establishment and operation of project-site Dispute Resolution Boards to deal with construction disputes contemporaneously.
• Represented an entity of Taiwan’s largest industrial group, the Formosa Plastics Group, in the assertion of a claim against a Dutch boiler manufacturer arising out of the catastrophic explosion of a boiler in its southern Taiwan FCFC power plant. After an interim award in favor of FCFC on the issue of liability, a settlement in the range of $30 million on FCFC’s damages claim was reached with the manufacturer and its excess liability insurer.
• Obtained an award of $40 million in an ICC arbitration on behalf of a Latin American group against a Russian industrial entity in a Zurich-based case arising from the post-privatization interruption of long-term commodity delivery commitments.
• Obtained an award of more than $85 million in an ICC arbitration on behalf of the Eurotrain Consortium in connection with its breach of contract claim related to the design, installation, and operation of a high-speed rail link between Taipei and Kaohsiung on the island of Taiwan.