LALIVE

International commercial and investment arbitration.

Senior Counsel

Michael E. Schneider is a founding partner of LALIVE and now Senior Counsel. He has practised in international arbitration for more than 40 years as counsel in ad hoc proceedings and under various rules, including those of the ICC, ICSID, LCIA, Swiss Rules, Stockholm Institute, the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), Dubai International Arbitration Centre (DIAC), European Development Fund, UNCITRAL, and before other international bodies, including the WTO Appellate Body and the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC). He has also acted in many cases as arbitrator (chair, sole or co-arbitrator) under the rules of many institutions both in Switzerland and abroad.

Mr Schneider’s main areas of practice are disputes involving States and corporations in construction, industrial engineering and infrastructure projects, natural resources (in particular oil and gas), pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and investment disputes. He has specific experience in dealing with technical issues and in managing large and complex disputes, organising and leading teams of specialists from different fields and different legal and cultural backgrounds.

Mr Schneider is honorary president of the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA). At ASA, he developed inter alia the Arbitration Practice Seminar organised annually since 1997 with civil law and common law practitioners. He was vice chair of the ICC Commission on Arbitration until 2014 and has been a member of several of its working groups (1998 and 2012 revisions of the ICC rules, construction, pre-arbitral referee). He chaired the UNCITRAL Working Group II (Arbitration) at its Sessions in New York and Vienna (2006-2010) on the revision of the Arbitration Rules and on the revision of the Notes on Organizing Arbitral Proceedings (2014-2015) and was Vice-Chair of the Commission (2015-2017). He is past president of the International Academy of Construction Lawyers (IACL) and was co-chair of the IBA Committee on international Construction Projects.  He is member of the Board of Trustees of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA) and of the Court of Arbitration of the Singapore Arbitration Centre; he was a member of the Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre. He also was advising as inhouse counsel Universal Engineering and Finance Corporation (UNEFICO) on all contract matters.

Mr Schneider lectures at the University of Fribourg LLM Programme and was Director of Studies at the Centre for Studies and Research at the Hague Academy of International Law (Transnational Arbitration and State Contracts). He studied law and history at the universities of Munich, Bonn and Geneva and completed the 1st and 2nd State examination (capacity to hold office as a judge). He completed postgraduate studies at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and is a former AIESEC trainee with the Shell Company in Sierra Leone.

German, English, French, working knowledge of Italian, Spanish and Arabic.