Squire Patton Boggs

A formidable investor-state disputes team is drawing in new sovereign client

Squire Patton Boggs was born out of a 2014 merger between Cleveland-based Squire Sanders and Washington, DC-based Patton Boggs.

Partner George von Mehren, who splits his time between London and Cleveland, built the Squire Sanders arbitration team in the 2000s and has led the international dispute resolution practice for two decades.

He now co-chairs the practice with Stephen Anway, who joined Squire Sanders in 2004 and works from New York and Washington, DC.

Another long-serving partner is Rostislav Pekař in Prague, who co-heads the firm’s investment arbitration practice. The other co-head is partner Miriam Harwood in New York, who was part of a group of nine lawyers that joined in 2019 from Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle. They included partner Ali Gursel in New York and a team in Ashgabat.

The result is that Squire Patton Boggs now fields a formidable team for investment arbitration that is attracting new sovereign clients. Eight new governments have started using the firm in the past two years.

The firm has a strong reputation for gas price review cases. It reckons to have concluded more than 40 gas pricing disputes in Europe or Asia, with wins or settlements negotiated before arbitration, for clients including Naturgy and Edison. Michelle Glassman Bock in Brussels leads much of this work.

There is also a public international law (PIL) practice co-headed by Luka Misetic in New York. He’s a US lawyer of Croatian heritage who joined the firm in 2015 and has acted in cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

The other PIL co-head is senior partner Rodman Bundy in Singapore, a renowned advocate who has appeared in many high-profile state-to-state disputes. He joined the firm in 2021 from Eversheds Sutherland, where he was head of PIL and co-head of arbitration.

There’s an impressive team in Paris including John Adam, who joined in 2021 from Latham & Watkins; Carole Sportes, who has handled various disputes for Libya; and former ICC Court deputy secretary general José Feris. Another name to know is Raúl Mañón in Miami, who leads on much of the group’s Latin America-related work.

Network

The disputes group fields more than 140 lawyers in 25 offices. In Europe and the US, the main offices for arbitration are London, Paris, Brussels, Frankfurt, Prague, New York, Washington, DC and Miami.

Legacy firm Patton Boggs had a disputes practice in the Middle East and work in this region is handled from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha – led by construction disputes specialist Tom Wilson.

There are also boots on the ground in Milan, Houston, Columbus, Ashgabat, Singapore and Santo Domingo.

Who uses it?

Government clients include Costa Rica, Croatia, Estonia, Ecuador, Gabon, Kosovo, Nigeria, Libya, Slovakia and Saudi Arabia. The team from Curtis brought several active cases for Turkmenistan. The firm has had a long relationship with the Czech Republic since legacy firm Squire Sanders gained a win for the state in the Nagel case in 2003.

In the energy sector, clients include Naturgy, Guangdong Dapeng LNG, Edison, Engie, Enel, and state entities KazMunaiGas of Kazakhstan and PDVSA of Venezuela.

It has also acted for Hamad International Airport (New Doha International Airport) and Hitachi.

Track record

The firm’s record of defence wins is excellent. It has helped Slovakia see off a US$1.65 billion ICSID claim over a talc mine, and defeated the first ever treaty claim against Kosovo, worth €380 million.

For Turkmenistan, it saw off a nearly US$500 million ICSID claim brought by Turkish construction investors. Libya used it to defeat a US$190 million claim arising from the country’s 2011 revolution.

In gas price reviews, the firm says it has been unbeaten since 2004 when it represented a Spanish buyer in the first case spawned by the EU liberalisation of national gas markets, helping to establish key principles in the area.

In 2020, the team helped Turkmenistan’s national gas company Türkmengaz win €1.5 billion in an ICC claim against the National Iranian Gas Company over payments for gas supplies. More recently, the firm helped Italian utility Edison defeat a price review claim worth hundreds of millions of euros brought by Qatargas over an LNG supply contract.

It helped a Canadian contractor defeat a US$227 million claim lodged by a subsidiary of State Space Agency of Ukraine. The dispute concerned a satellite launch project disrupted by Russia’s annexation of Crimea.

The Frankfurt office successfully defended Swedish medical technology group Elekta against a €575 million LCIA claim brought by Germany’s Livian concerning an information system used in radiotherapy for cancer patients. The award was upheld in the English courts.

Recent events

There were further successes for Kosovo, with the firm defeating a €65 million claim by the purported owner of a network of petrol stations, and a €30 million claim by an Estonian fintech company over a revoked microfinance licence.

For Costa Rica, the firm secured the dismissal of a US$100 million ICSID claim brought by a Spanish investor over the closure of a chicken meat-processing business on public health grounds.

A hard-fought case for Croatia saw the firm reduce a billion-dollar ICSID claim by Hungarian oil and gas group MOL to an award of US$184 million plus interest in the investor’s favour. The state failed on arguments the case should be thrown out because of alleged bribes paid to a former prime minister.

Partner John Branson in New York is part of a co-counsel team that has done great work for Laos in a long-running dispute with two gaming companies over a casino. The team defeated a pair of treaty claims worth US$1 billion based on evidence of bribery and fraud by the investors, and then ensured that result was upheld in the Singapore courts. 

The firm is engaged on 17 pending ICSID arbitrations, including multiple cases for Turkmenistan and Peru and other matters for Iraq, Nigeria, Benin, Croatia and Slovakia. It also acts for investors in a pair of claims against Serbia.

Turkmen state entity Turkmenhimiya is also using it for a billion-dollar SCC claim against a Belarusian state-owned company over the construction of a potash fertiliser plant.

ČEZ, the Czech majority state-owned energy group, has retained the firm for a US$45 million ICC claim against Gazprom over supplies of Russian gas.

British-Serbian national Marija Šćekić joined the firm as a director in London after a decade at WilmerHale. Partner Stephan Adell left after eight years, mostly spent in Dubai due to his construction practice, to co-launch a Latin American disputes boutique. 

The firm promoted Vladimír Polách and Matej Pustay in Prague to the partnership.

Client comment

A state client in an ICSID matter says that Squire Patton Boggs “provides outstanding client service, builds a solid and trusting relationship with the client, and truly work as a team”.  Feris, Mañón and Pekař proved to be “excellent cross-examiners” and showed “remarkable poise” in the hearing. “Definitely one of the best law firms we have worked with.”

Another user says the team has “outstanding knowledge” of specific sectors such as energy resources, meaning the firm can act “one stop service”. Partner Max Rockall in London is a “diligent and responsible lawyer”.