Practice Area Spotlight: Dispute resolution – Strategic case management with legal acumen

State court litigation and private arbitration proceedings require practitioners to combine legal thoroughness and the management of evidence with strategic ingenuity. Understanding court processes, legal practice and tactical procedural advantages all add up to sound advice in contentious legal matters.

Dispute resolution in all its appearances enjoys a longstanding tradition at Prager Dreifuss. Our attorneys represent parties before local state courts as well as administrative authorities. Debt collection and bankruptcy matters are strong areas of our practice, in particular in disputes involving foreign parties. International arbitration has attained special significance in our firm, and a number of our attorneys are regularly appointed as arbitrators in institutional and ad hoc arbitration tribunals.

Our experience also extends to representation of clients in alternative dispute resolution and mediation proceedings, and strategic advice for out-of-court settlements of disputes. Frequently and increasingly, we are retained to manage complex legal assistance matters in both civil and criminal mandates. Finally, assisting clients in asset tracing, and the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Switzerland and abroad, is a key feature of our daily practice.

With 40 lawyers and a total of around 80 employees at our offices in Zurich, Berne and Brussels, Prager Dreifuss is one of the leading Swiss commercial law firms. With the ability to draw on additional specialised experience within the firm, ranging from M&A, banking and finance to insurance law, private clients and tax, Prager Dreifuss is ideally placed to offer clients a comprehensive range of necessary legal services in addition to representation in dispute-related matters, and effective and innovative solutions adapted to the legal and economic realities of complex challenges.

The Prager Dreifuss dispute resolution team is led by Urs Feller. The team consists of four partners (Feller, Christoph Graber, Christian Casanova and Reto Jenny) and includes two counsels (Marcel Frey and Bernhard Lauterburg) as well as a strong team of highly skilled associates (Raphael Keller, Nina Lim, Mark Meili, Laura Oegerli, Andrea Stäubli, Mike Tau, Andreas Schregenberger, Michaela Kappeler, Alain Meier and Manuel Vogler).

In as far as is necessary and suited for a client matter, we are able to form a tailored team of partners and lawyers of varying seniority to manage any dispute case that is entrusted to us.

With our wide network of dispute resolution experts in other major jurisdictions (US, UK, China, EU, Russia and CIS, India, Arab countries, etc) we are able to ensure that all aspects of complex, multinational disputes are taken
into due consideration at every stage of proceedings. This may encompass inter alia asset tracing and asset recovery, mutual legal assistance, piercing the corporate veil of offshore companies and/or trusts, possible barriers to enforcement, whether national or international, etc.

Recent work undertaken by this team includes the representation of a large Swiss nationally operating retailer in a substantial dispute, assisting a bank in the recovery of misappropriated assets, advising foreign states on the recovery of illicit assets from former government officials deposited in Switzerland, managing large multinational insolvency-related disputes and many more.

Prager Dreifuss is consistently ranked as an outstanding firm worldwide by leading publications, including Chambers & Partners, The Legal 500, IFLR1000 and Who’s Who Legal.