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Litigation & Dispute Resolution

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With a strong focus on risk mitigation and the delivery of practical results, we are committed to helping our clients navigate an ever-evolving and complex legal environment and achieve their goals in Luxembourg and around the world.

In an era of increasingly complex laws and regulations but also greater competition among peers, businesses face ever growing demands and challenges from their own clients and with this also litigation risks have risen lately considerably on all fronts.

As a full service law firm, we offer our diverse client base litigation expertise and services in all the areas of business law.

With our unmatched litigation capabilities, which can bank on leading experts in all fields of the Arendt service offering, we position ourselves to offer clients a full spectrum of legal assistance and support, especially in high-stake, very complex litigation matters where strategic counsel and strong advocacy are crucial.

Our multidisciplinary team protects clients from all of these risks, offering tailored solutions that reflect the interconnected nature of today’s challenges. What sets us apart is our ability to advocate for our clients in any type of dispute because we draw on insights from all of our practice areas to provide comprehensive support and highly praised and unmatched litigation expertise.

Our unique strength comes from combining our core seasoned litigators (that master all the complexities of procedural laws) with field experts from all of our practice areas. This joint teaming-up approach allows them to champion the interests of our clients with a fully integrated litigation service. With this cross-functional approach, we can handle with a strategic focus even the most challenging disputes.

Litigation is much more than just defending clients’ interests in court proceedings, it is also about being a trusted advisor that offers strategic support at every stage of the process.

As lawyers, we stand by our clients in these times of distress, we are there to protect their interests and guide them through times of uncertainty, while also supporting them in identifying the best possible strategy in order to resolve disputes, whether that’s is moving more away from or, on the opposite, more towards litigation.

Our key areas of expertise include

Arbitration

Arendt advises and represents companies, States and State-owned entities in international and domestic arbitration conducted in accordance with various arbitration rules (ICC, UNCITRAL, DIS, etc.), as well as in proceedings to set aside or enforce awards. Arendt’s Dispute Resolution team covers a broad range of applicable laws, including international law and EU law, and a variety of languages (including English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish and Greek) and disputes across all industries. It is widely regarded as the go-to team for arbitration and related matters in Luxembourg.

In addition, members of the team regularly serve as party-appointed arbitrators, sole arbitrators and chairpersons of arbitral tribunals.

Your key contacts: Clara Mara-Marhuenda, Paschalis Paschalidis, Séverine Hamm and Estelle Brisson

Learn more about our Arbitration expertise

Banking litigation and regulatory action

Our team, which includes experts in private banking, regulatory and financing matters, is a leader in assisting banks, investment firms and other financial sector institutions in managing sensitive disputes, investigations and litigation proceedings before domestic and international civil and criminal courts, besides regulatory and investigative authorities. Our clients can benefit from the team’s complementary capabilities and proficiency in handling multi-jurisdictional matters requiring synchronised and streamlined cross-border coordination, ensuring that each case is handled with all the necessary expertise and efficiency.

Areas frequently dealt with by our team include commercial and civil litigation, enforcement of security interests, civil and criminal seizure proceedings, financial sector restructuring and insolvency, investigations relating to regulatory compliance, white-collar crime, money laundering and the financing of terrorism, dealing with monitors appointed by foreign authorities, and handling cooperation requests from domestic and foreign authorities.

Your key contacts: Philippe Dupont, Clara Mara-Marhuenda and Glenn Meyer

Competition litigation

Our dedicated EU and competition law team has expertise in all EU and national competition law matters, including anti-trust, merger control and state aid matters. It acts for a broad range of clients from both the public and private sectors, operating domestically and internationally.

Alongside advisory work and representing clients in administrative investigations performed by EU and national competition authorities, litigation is a key element of the practice. The team handles appeals before Luxembourg and EU courts against decisions of the national competition authority and the European Commission, preliminary rulings before the EU Court of Justice and damages claims arising from competition law infringements.

Your key contact: Philippe-Emmanuel Partsch

EU litigation

The EU and competition law team often acts in litigation involving financial services, taxation, EU institutional affairs, and economic sectors that are highly regulated at the EU level, including transport, energy, communications and postal services, as well as competition.

We possess expertise on a range of legal issues related to the EU treaties and institutions, and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as EU legislation governing multiple sectors of the economy, such as public procurement rules, and knowledge of internal market rules governing the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital.

We act for clients from both the private and public sectors – including EU institutions and bodies – in litigation before the EU and Luxembourg courts.

Your key contact: Philippe-Emmanuel Partsch

Learn more about our EU litigation expertise

IP, communication and technology disputes

Our IP, communication and technology specialists have long-standing experience in assisting clients in litigation regarding all intellectual property matters. They also defend clients’ interests in customs seizures and in trademark and design procedures before intellectual property rights authorities.

The team assists our clients in defending their trademarks, designs, patents and copyright before both Luxembourg and EU jurisdictions. They also handle disputes related to unfair competition, advertising and telecommunications, and their expertise also includes litigation in information technology matters and commercial contracts.

Your key contact: Astrid Wagner

Mediation

Our team regularly advises clients in mediation proceedings. We can provide the services of an approved mediator at the Civil and Commercial Mediation Centre.

Your key contact: François Kremer

Public and administrative law disputes

Our team has years of experience in both contentious and non-contentious public and administrative law-related matters, advising the national government, municipal authorities and other public bodies, as well as private-sector clients in their dealings with the public sector.

We assist our clients in a wide variety of disputes, including the following areas:

Urban planning
Environment
Health and safety
Public procurement
Review of administrative sanctions imposed by national regulatory authorities
Civil liability of the public sector.

Your key contacts: Christian Point, Martial Barbian and Gilles Dauphin

Restructuring and insolvency

We have a team of dedicated experts in restructuring and insolvency (R&I) matters, including out-of-court and judicial restructurings and insolvency proceedings in Luxembourg, as well as cases involving foreign jurisdictions.

Learn more about our Restructuring & Insolvency expertise

Asset tracing

Our team has significant expertise and acknowledged capability to provide pro-active services to Luxembourg or foreign claimants in emergency relief procedures, enforcement proceedings and asset tracing. We are very regularly involved in emergency interlocutory work for claimants, often in multi-jurisdictional matters. Over the years, our team has developed extensive experience in all civil and criminal asset recovery remedies.

Your key contact: Clara Mara-Marhuenda

Commercial and corporate litigation

Our team advises banks, investment funds, insurance companies, multinational corporations, SMEs, private equity houses and other institutions, and frequently acts in multi-jurisdictional litigation.

Our commercial dispute resolution lawyers focus on business- and finance-related litigation and arbitration, including corporate and shareholders’ disputes, share transfer litigation including option and pre-emption disputes, and warranty claims stemming from corporate acquisitions or disposals.

Your key contacts: Bob Calmes, Clara Mara-Marhuenda, Christian Point, Sandrine Margetidis-Sigwalt and Astrid Wagner

Employment disputes

Our team advises domestic and international institutional clients from the banking, financial and industrial sectors on all matters regarding employment contracts, including termination, business immigration and expatriation, restructuring and reorganisation, industrial relations, collective redundancies, collective bargaining negotiations, compensation and employee benefits schemes, equity and share option plans, pension schemes, restrictive covenants, data protection, privacy at work and social security law.

Our lawyers have extensive expertise in representing employers in all employment litigation matters, including defending dismissal and discrimination claims. They also provide assistance in negotiations with trade unions and employee representatives, especially for banking and industrial clients.

Your key contact: Philippe Schmit

Investment fund litigation

Our team regularly represents investment funds and their service providers, including management companies, depositary banks and investors. We handle disputes with or between investors, between funds and their service providers, and represent investment funds in matters relating to their investments, drawing on our firm’s robust expertise as Luxembourg’s leading investment fund law firm. We also deal with non-standard events affecting investment funds, such as bankruptcy and reorganisation.

We have been involved in some of the most significant and complex cases in Luxembourg, at both national and international level, and work closely with leading foreign litigators.

We also assist clients in responding to spiralling regulatory risks, helping them throughout regulatory proceedings. In the earliest stages, our lawyers can help structure an appropriate response to convince a regulator that no further action is required, or ensure that regulatory decisions are appropriate and preserve one of our clients’ most valuable assets: their reputation.

Your key contacts: Yves Lacroix, Clara Mara-Marhuenda and Sandrine Margetidis-Sigwalt

Insurance litigation

The civil litigation team includes lawyers specialised in handling large and complex litigation for insurance companies, with wide-ranging experience of all types of insurance litigation, as well as providing legal services to the industry on matters involving coverage disputes, reinsurance and policy wording.

Your key contacts: Pierre-Michaël de Waersegger, Sandrine Margetidis-Sigwalt, Emmanuelle Mousel, Christian Point and Pierre Hédouin

Private Clients disputes

Our private clients litigation team has broad experience in sophisticated domestic and multi-jurisdictional estate disputes. While we always favour an amicable resolution, notably through mediation, we are also ready when necessary to defend the interests of our private clients in all kinds of estate-related court disputes including:

Challenges to the validity of wills
Forced heirship statutes, clawback of donation, restoration or accounting of gifts
Actions for statement of accounts
Disputes involving family businesses
Investor and shareholder disputes.

Real estate and construction disputes

Our team has considerable experience assisting buyers, sellers, developers, investors, builders, landlords, tenants and others in real estate and construction disputes, including:

Disputes over construction defects
Contract disputes in renovation and construction projects
Disputes over real estate purchase agreements
Landlord-tenant disputes
Title issues, including disputes over boundary lines, and easements
Zoning and other land use disputes, including development and construction permits
Insurance and coverage disputes.

Your key contacts: Christian Point and Pierre Hédouin

Tax litigation

Tax disputes involving corporations or high-net-worth individuals are increasing steadily in a global environment characterised by increased transparency and rapidly-changing rules.

Through our longstanding experience and relationship of trust with the authorities, we favour dialogue and efforts to settle any tax disputes in the pre-litigation administrative phase, always keeping in mind the best interests of our clients. Assistance in pre-litigation processes can take many forms, including discussions with the tax authorities regarding audits, or requests for exchange of information.

When court action cannot be avoided, our tax litigation team has amassed valuable experience in representing clients before the Luxembourg administrative and civil courts on a wide range of tax issues, including corporate taxation, transfer pricing, individual taxation, VAT and registration duties. We also have a solid track record in assisting clients before the European Court of Justice.

Whatever the situation, our team will lead you through the tax litigation procedure and help you determine the strategy to ensure that your interests are best protected.

Your key contact: Thierry Lesage