International Dispute Resolution

Orrick's International Dispute Resolution Group offers clients from around the world extensive experience handling litigation matters in a number of jurisdictions as well as a wide range of mechanisms to resolve disputes by consensual rules outside the courts, including arbitration, mediation, conciliation and minitrials.

Orrick litigators help clients prevail in international litigation and arbitration, including International Chamber of Commerce arbitrations. With three overseas offices, as well as joint venture relationships spanning three Asian countries, Orrick can resolve or litigate disputes in global venues or that involve international parties. Some of Orrick's more notable recent cases include the following examples:

• Vivendi Universal S.A. Vivendi Universal, the French and worldwide media-to-telecoms conglomerate, in its battle over the Polish telecommunications industry. On December 20, 2005, the Vienna Commercial Court ruled in favor of Orrick client and Polish subsidiary of Vivendi, Elektrim Telekomunikacja (Telco), annulling a 2004 award by a Viennese arbitral tribunal which held that a 1999 transfer of shares in Polska Telefonia Cyfrowa (PTC), the first mobile telecom operator in Poland, from Elektrim (another Polish telecom company) to Telco, was "ineffective," or never happened. Not only does this annulment judgment, which is an exceptional outcome in Austria (where courts rarely set aside international arbitral awards), fully confirm Orrick's long-standing position that this award is unenforceable against Telco and does not affect Telco's ownership right over the PTC shares, but it also will be useful to Telco's efforts
  to reinstate its PTC appointees.
• HRH Prince Jefri Bolkiah. A team of Orrick lawyers represents HRH Prince Jefri Bolkiah of Brunei in a series of cases in the United States.
• Folium. Orrick represented a group of South Africans and Zimbabweans in a lawsuit arising from the sale of a leaf merchant business based in the United Kingdom. After extensive international discovery, the case settled shortly before trial.
• Maxwell Communication Corporation. A team of Orrick lawyers served as United States Special Litigation Counsel to the administrators of Maxwell Communication Corporation. In that capacity, we were involved in a series of U.S. and U.K. lawsuits arising from the collapse of the corporate empire controlled by Robert Maxwell until his death in 1991.
• John Wyeth & Brother Ltd. In a coverage dispute concerning massive costs incurred in the successful defense of thousands of benzodiazepine claims in Europe, we served as courtroom advisors to the U.K. barristers trying the case, under U.S. law, in the Commercial Court of London.
• Honda Motor Co. Orrick obtained a dismissal with prejudice of all antitrust claims against this Japanese client based on insufficient contacts for the California court to exercise personal jurisdiction. In another case on behalf of Honda, Orrick prevented the opposing party from taking the deposition of a Japanese national on international comity grounds.
• Logitech. In Primax Electronics v. Logitech, a patent case, we obtained injunctive relief preventing Primax from seizing our client's products at the Chinese border.