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Siegfried Elsing, Prof. Dr. LL.M. (Yale)

Partner

Dusseldorf

Siegfried Elsing is a globally recognized arbitration practitioner with more than 40 years of experience serving as counsel and arbitrator in national and international proceedings.

He has acted as counsel and arbitrator in more than 300 arbitrations, including ad hoc proceedings and cases administered under the rules of many leading arbitration institutions such as the ICC, LCIA, DIS, ICSID and UNCITRAL.

As counsel, he represents both private investors and international corporations, as well as sovereign states, and state-owned enterprises in a range of significant, complex and, frequently, cross-border disputes.

Siegfried has extensive experience with both commercial and investment arbitration. His work as counsel and arbitrator spans a wide variety of disputes including post M&A and other corporate transactions (e.g. joint ventures); engineering; energy and construction cases; intellectual property disputes such as licensing and distributorship agreements, investment protection cases involving a multitude of bilateral investment treaties; and disputes concerning financing arrangements.

In addition to his work as counsel and  arbitrator, Siegfried also appears as an expert witness before German courts, courts in the United States and the United Kingdom and foreign regulatory institutions.

He is admitted to practice as an attorney-at-law in both Germany and New York. Accordingly, his legal practice also focuses on German-American legal transactions.

Siegfried has been recommended consistently by many legal publications as arbitrator and counsel for arbitration. As in previous years, the Lexology Index (formerly Who's Who Legal) has featured Siegfried as a "Global Elite Thought Leader" in Arbitration, Chambers Global 2026 describes him as a "star individual" and a "towering figure in the German and European arbitration market" who is "often sitting in complex disputes under ICC, ICSID AND UNCITRAL rules, while also being well versed in a number of other arbitration rules" and "sought after as an arbitrator for commercial and investment cases."

Siegfried has served on the boards and panels of many leading arbitration institutions. He has previously served on the Advisory Board of the American Arbitration Association (2009 to 2020) and the Panel of Conciliators of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) (2011 to 2017). He was a member of the Board of the German Arbitration Institute (DIS) (2012 to 2022) and served on the DIS Council (since 2022 to 2025). He also served as Chairman of the Mediation Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA) (2007-2008).

Siegfried regularly publishes in the field of international arbitration and comparative law and is the co-editor of the German Arbitration Journal (Zeitschrift für Schiedsverfahren (SchiedsVZ)). He also frequently appears on panels and holds lectures on international arbitration and comparative law, with a particular focus on U.S. law. Siegfried is an honorary professor at the Faculty of Law at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, where he has taught international commercial arbitration and international civil procedure law for 25 years.

Since 2013, he has represented the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg as Honorary Consul in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Siegfried Elsing co-founded the German law firm Hölters & Elsing in 1989 and oversaw its the merger with Orrick in 2008.

  • Select mandates:

    Engineering, energy and construction

    Counsel

    • Federal Republic of Germany in various arbitration proceedings to defend against claims of over €700 million in connection with the planned introduction of a car toll system following the termination of the contract
    • Plant manufacturer in a dispute in connection with the construction of an offshore wind farm project in the North Sea
    • Leading hydropower equipment supplier in a dispute concerning the construction of a hydropower plant in Greece
    Arbitrator
    • Failed investment in a hotel complex and a casino (1 bn euro, ICC, chair)
    • LNG supply contract price revision (several 100 m US dollar, ICC)
    • Adjustment of price provisions for the supply of Russian natural gas to a European importer (3 bn US dollar, ICC)
    • Dispute between a Dutch and an Italian energy company regarding the price adjustment under a long-term agreement for the purchase and sale of natural gas (1 bn US dollar, ICC, chair)
    • Romanian power producer regarding a contractual dispute with a German technology group over the refurbishment of a hydropower plant (140 m US dollar, ICC, chair)
    • German-based energy trading company in a dispute with a global importer over claims under a long-term gas sales agreement (73 m US dollar, DIS)
    • European pumped storage power plant company in a dispute (damages for delay) concerning the construction of a hydroelectric power plant (over 50 m euro, ICC, chair)
    • Various German energy service providers in relation to price adjustment claims (ad hoc)
    • Dutch energy company and leading German utility company regarding a joint venture agreement for the construction and operation of a gas storage cavern (DIS, chair)
    • Several proceedings in connection with utility services in Turkey (ICC, chair)

    Post M&A and corporate transactions

    Counsel

    • Insolvency administrator of a major manufacturer of photographic film and laboratory equipment and companies of a Belgian photographic group in relation to the spin-off of the consumer imaging business (several ICC proceedings)
    Arbitrator
    • Post M&A dispute between two global companies in connection with the partial acquisition of the seed division (1.7 bn euro, ICC, chair)
    • European gas transportation company and a joint venture regarding the acquisition of a gas transmission network (800 m euro, DIS)
    • Post M&A dispute between a building materials group and a US insurance company (270 m euro, DIS, chair)
    • Post M&A dispute between a Russian and a Turkish company in connection with the sale of a group of companies in the energy sector (200 m US dollar, ICC, chair)

    Investment protection

    Counsel

    • North Macedonia in an investment protection case brought by Indian investors (Case No. 2018-18) for alleged violations of the Indo-Macedonian BIT (224 m US dollar, UNCITRAL, PCA)
    Arbitrator
    • RSM Production Corp. vs. St. Lucia, ICSID-ARB 12/10 (chair)
    • Ali Alyafei vs. Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, ICSID-ARB 15/24
    • CAP Holding vs. 1. State of Palestine (PA) & 2. Sanad Construction Industries Company, SCAI Case No. 600364-2013 (chair)
    • Public Joint Stock Company Mobile TeleSystems vs. Turkmenistan, ICSID-ARB/AF 18/4 (chair)
    • Rinat Akhmetov & Investio LLC vs. The Russian Federation, PCA Case No. 2019-34 (chair)
    Intellectual property
    • Dispute in the context of a license agreement to determine license fees for standard-essential patents according to FRAND principles (1 bn US dollar, ICC)
    Other
    • Claims for damages by a major bank against a former member of the management board (ad hoc, chair)