Noerr

Defending Germany at ICSID

One of Europe’s largest law firms by revenue, Noerr was founded in Munich in 1950 and was known for a long time as Nörr Stiefenhofer Lutz before rebranding in 2009. The full-service firm describes itself as pan-European, with nine of its 15 offices outside Germany.

The firm has long been well regarded for work in telecoms, technology, financial services and real estate transactions. Its arbitration practice has not attracted as much attention until relatively recently, thanks to some mandates in high-profile investment treaty disputes with an EU law angle.

Anke Meier in Frankfurt heads the arbitration practice, as well as co-leading the litigation department. She has been a partner at the firm since 2010 and previously worked at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Düsseldorf. She is also New York-qualified and one of Germany’s picks for ICSID’s panel of conciliators.

The Frankfurt office includes partners Meike von Levetzow, who advises on renewable energy and healthcare cases, and Lucie Gerhardt.

The Düsseldorf team is home to California-qualified Jennifer Bryant who sits on the board of the German Arbitration Institute (DIS) and the German-American Lawyers’ Association; and Oliver Sieg who specialises in insurance matters and co-leads the litigation team.

Meier, von Levetzow and Sieg all sit as arbitrators.

Network

The arbitration team is mainly in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. The wider firm is also in four other German cities (Munich, Dresden, Berlin and Hamburg). It also has offices in Prague, Warsaw, Bucharest, Bratislava, New York, London, Alicante and Brussels.

There used to be an office in Moscow, but this was spun off into a separate firm, Arno Legal, in 2022 in the wake of the war in Ukraine.

Who uses it?

Noerr’s major clients include the German and Dutch governments, Samsung Electronics, British chemicals group INEOS, Mexican cement manufacturer CEMEX and insurance companies including Covéa.

It also has a US slant influenced by its collection of common law-trained team members. 

Recent events

Meier is leading a team defending Germany in two ICSID claims together worth more than €1 billion. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) cases are brought by Austrian and Irish investors in North Sea wind projects allegedly disrupted by regulatory changes.

The Dutch government also retained the firm for a Cologne court action against German energy companies RWE and Uniper, seeking a declaration that ECT claims launched by the companies to challenge climate legislation were inadmissible for being contrary to EU law. Though the action failed, Uniper has since withdrawn its ECT claim as a condition of a bailout from the German government.

Noerr is representing a pipe manufacturer in ICC arbitration in Abu Dhabi over the dissolution of a joint venture. The dispute has also given rise to German court proceedings and a New York arbitration over allegations of fraud relating to an M&A.

Von Levetzow is instructed on a claim against a German federal state worth over US$100 million based on the termination of a public-private partnership project.

Michael Molitoris in Munich, who advised on product liability disputes as well as sitting as arbitrator, left to join German firm SZA Schilling Zutt & Anschütz in 2021.