George M. von Mehren leads the firm’s International Dispute Resolution & Non-US Litigation Practice Group, ranked by The American Lawyer’s 2009 Arbitration Scorecard as a top arbitration practice globally. The publication also recognized one of Mr. von Mehren’s recent arbitration victories, in which the client benefited by more than US$1 billion, as the second largest arbitration award by dollar amount in the world during the prior two years. The 2007 Arbitration Scorecard recognized another of Mr. von Mehren’s victories as among the five largest arbitration awards in the prior five years.

With more than 30 years of experience in complex adversarial proceedings, Mr. von Mehren spends 100 percent of his time representing clients in international arbitrations and providing strategic advice for litigation in courts outside the United States. He has an established record of working effectively with counsel from a wide range of countries in Europe, Latin America and Asia to achieve strong results for clients.

His recent arbitration experience involves representing clients in cases with multimillion to multibillion US dollar claims. He served as lead counsel in a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) arbitration and a related contract arbitration concerning banking regulatory matters with claims exceeding US$8 billion; a BIT case involving the issuance of GSM licenses; an International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) case involving payments for electricity in Latin America; an ICSID case involving termination of an oil participation contract in a Latin American country; an ICSID case involving the propriety of a nation’s criminal and civil investigation of a foreign-owned enterprise; in several cases involving pricing of liquefied natural gas; various construction cases including an ICC case involving the first privately constructed pipeline in Mexico; and in many cases involving breach of contract claims.

A frequent commentator on arbitration-related topics, Mr. von Mehren has addressed the ICC International Court of Arbitration Workshops in 2009 and 2007; the ICC’s Arbitraje en America Latina: Temas Actuales sobre Arbitraje Comercial; the  International Centre for Dispute Resolution’s Conference on ADR after NAFTA; Duke Law School’s International Law Society; the Forum on International Arbitration for Investor States in Quito, presented by the Office of the Attorney General of Ecuador; and the Harvard Law School’s conference on “International Investment Law at a Crossroads.” He has also presented “When a Government Is Involved: Bilateral Investments Treaty Arbitration and Its Relationship to Commercial Arbitration” at Tools and Tactics in International Commercial Arbitration in Paris. He spoke on the 2004 version of the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts at a joint seminar in Paris hosted by the ICC and the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT).

Mr. von Mehren is the author of the chapter, “A Brief Overview of International Arbitration,” published in Inside the Minds: Best Practices for International Alternative Dispute Resolution; author of “Expropriation in Complex Cases Pursuant to Generally Applicable Laws and Regulations,” which appeared in the June 2006 edition of Transnational Dispute Management magazine; co-author of “Navigating Through Investor-State Arbitration – An Overview of Bilateral Investment Treaty Claims,” published in the February/April 2004 edition of the American Arbitration Association’s Dispute Resolution Journal; and co-author of “Submitting Evidence in an International Arbitration” in the Journal of International Arbitration, 20(3): 285-294, 2003.

Mr. von Mehren is a US representative to the ICC Commission on Arbitration. He is also a member of the ICC Court of Arbitration’s Task Force on the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and the ICC’s Task Force on Amiable Composition and Ex Aequo et Bono principles in international arbitration. He is recognized in Who’s Who In The World and various other Who’s Who publications including The International Who’s Who of Commercial Arbitration, and the Legal Media Group’s Guide to the World’s Leading Experts in Commercial Arbitration. PLC Which Lawyer? Yearbook described Mr. von Mehren as “an exclusively international arbitrator who has recently worked on one of the most high-value global arbitrations recorded.”

Mr. von Mehren’s legal training at Cambridge University (Trinity College) and Harvard Law School provides him with the background necessary to deal with cases governed by both common and civil law. Qualified to practice in several US courts, Mr. von Mehren is also a Registered Foreign Lawyer with the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (England and Wales). Whether a contract, licensing or joint venture dispute, construction, product liability, securities, insurance or regulatory matter, Mr. von Mehren is skilled in developing sophisticated strategies designed to win his client’s case either at hearing or in settlement negotiations.