Charles Adams

Partner

Ginevra

Charles C. Adams, Jr. is the former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Republic of Finland (2015-2017) and Global Co-Head of Orrick’s International Arbitration Practice Group, based in Geneva. Charles is acknowledged to be among the most prominent international arbitration experts in the world. According to Global Arbitration Review, Charles “is highly regarded (one leading international arbitrator described him to GAR as the most persuasive advocate to have appeared before him)”. He serves as Orrick’s Global Director of Strategic Relationships.

Charles’s experience spans four decades at the highest levels of international dispute-resolution; he has acted in more than 300 arbitral proceedings under various governing laws and under the rules of almost all arbitral institutions in fora all over the world, most frequently as lead counsel, but also on occasion as chairman or co-arbitrator on tribunals in high-stakes cases.

His experience includes disputes in engineering and construction, energy and infrastructure, mining, transportation, telecommunications, life sciences and biotech, intellectual property and franchising and distribution, among many other fields of commercial or industrial endeavor. He has conducted commercial and investor-state arbitrations under the auspices of ICSID, the ICC, ICDR/AAA, LCIA, DIAC, SCC, SAC and SIAC. Charles also advises on export control regulations and economic sanctions administered by the U.S. and the European Union, including matters relating to customs regulations, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-money laundering rules and anti-boycott requirements.

For more than 10 years Charles was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), and he has served on the Board of Advisors of the NGO End Human Trafficking Now and as a guest lecturer at the UN’s International Development Law Organization. Charles frequently appears on Francophone television channels (TF1, LCI, TV5 Monde, Télévision Suisse Romande), as a commentator on political, economic and cultural matters.

  • Among cases which are of public record:

    • Charles led the successful enforcement of a $100 million award secured on behalf of the Eurotrain Consortium (Siemens and Alstom) against the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Consortium. 
    • Charles also chaired the arbitral tribunal in the matter of Telenor v. Alfa Group, involving a dispute over control of the Board of Directors of Vimpelcom (Ukraine).
    • Charles represented the Republic of Poland as lead counsel in the damages phase of a BIT arbitration against Eureko BV.