The Legal 500

Work Department

Litigation – commercial, arbitration, ADR, mediation, international commercial arbitration, international litigation.

Position

Litigation partner in the firm’s New York and London offices; has broad experience in the areas of international litigation and arbitration. He has handled international arbitrations throughout the world and before virtually every major arbitration institution. Subjects of these arbitrations have included long-term energy concessions, investment treaties, joint venture agreements, insurance coverage, construction contracts, distribution agreements and intellectual property, among others. Mr. Rivkin also represents European, Latin American and Asian companies in transnational litigation in the US, including the enforcement of arbitral awards and arbitration agreements.

Career

Served as a law clerk to Judge Luther Swygert of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 1980-81; joined Debevoise & Plimpton LLP 1982. Representations include: Hyundai Heavy Industries in winning an ICC arbitration award worth approximately $750m in a dispute involving shareholders rights and governance decisions in a Korean oil refinery company jointly owned by claimants and respondents. This victory was named the 2010 Arbitration Win of the Year by the ‘Global Arbitration Review’; Occidental Petroleum Corporation in winning over $100m in damages in a BIT arbitration resulting from Ecuador’ s failure to refund VAT payments to Occidental through 2003 and in its subsequent ICSID arbitration against Ecuador, filed on May 17 2006. The second filing was made two days after Ecuador terminated all of Occidental’s exploration and production rights and seized all of its assets in the country, worth significantly more than $3bn; Kenneth Dart and EM against the government of Argentina over defaulted bonds (successfully secured a $700m judgment on their behalf); General Electric, ExxonMobil, IDT, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Philip Morris, Fluor, and Hanbo Iron & Steel, among others, in successful or favourably settled arbitrations or litigation matters. Publications of note include: ‘Model Law Decisions: Cases Applying the UNCITRAL Model Law on Arbitration, 1985-2001’ (Kluwers 2003) and ‘Litigation and Arbitration in Central and Eastern Europe’ (Kluwers 1998). He has also written: ‘Obtaining Evidence for Use in International Arbitrations Through United States Courts’ in ‘Global Arbitration Review’ (2010); ‘Promoting Efficiency in International Arbitration’ in ‘Iberian Lawyer’ (2010); ‘Strategic Considerations in Developing An International Arbitration Case’ in ‘The Art of Advocacy in International Arbitration’ (Juris 2010); ‘Towards a Unified Approach to the Law Applicable to the Arbitration Agreement in the United States Courts’ in ‘Between East and West: Essays in Honour of Ulfranke’ (Juris 2010); The Application of New York Law to Contracts’ in ‘International Commercial Arbitration in New York’ (Oxford Press 2010); ‘Attachment and Execution on Commercial Assets’ in ‘Enforcement of Arbitral Awards Against Sovereigns’ (Juris 2009); ‘Towards a New Paradigm in International Arbitration: The Town Elder Model Revisited’ in ‘Arbitration International’, vol 24, no 3 (2008); ‘Protecting Both the FAA and Party Autonomy: The Hall Street Decision’, in ‘The American Review of International Arbitration’ (2008); ‘The Public Policy Exception to the Enforcement of International Arbitral Awards’ in ‘Stockholm International Arbitration Review’ (2008); ‘Procedural Issues to Consider’ in ‘Practitioner’ Handbook on International Arbitration and Mediation’ (2007); ‘The Role of Institutions in Investor-State Arbitration’ in ‘Investor-State Arbitration: Lessons for Asia’ (HKIAC 2008); ‘Trends in US and International Arbitration’ in ‘Arbitration Renew of the Americas’ (2007); ‘United States’, ‘Arbitration World’ (European Lawyer 2006), co-author; ‘International Commercial Arbitration: A Primer for US Litigators’, ‘International Litigation’ (ABA 2005); ‘The Impact of Parallel and Successive Proceedings on the Enforcement of Arbitral Awards’, ‘Parallel State and Arbitral Procedures in International Arbitration’ (ICC 2005); ‘A Growing Challenge for Ethics in International Arbitration’, ‘Liber Amicorum in Honour of Robert Briner’ (ICC 2005).

Member

Among others, he is the secretary-general of the International Bar Association (IBA). In the IBA, he has previously served as chair of the legal practice division, which includes more than 50 substantive committees, and of the committee on arbitration and ADR (committee D). Mr Rivkin is also president of the North American Users Council of the LCIA, for which he previously served as vice president of the court; a member of the boards of the arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce and of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre; and a member of the council of the American Law Institute, for which he is an adviser to the Restatement of the Law of International Arbitration and previously served as an adviser to the project on Transnational Rules of Civil Procedure. He has served as a member of the executive committee of the board of directors of the American Arbitration Association, where he was also chair of the Law Committee and headed task forces to revise the Association’s international and commercial arbitration rules. He held leadership positions within the ABA’s litigation section for 20 years, including five years as co-chair of the international litigation committee and a member of the section council and its director of divisions. He is a fellow of the London-based Chartered Institute of Arbitrators; a fellow of the College of Commercial Arbitrators; a member of the Commission on Settlement in International Arbitration of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR); a member of the Centro International de Arbitraje, Mediacion y Negotiation of the Instituto Universitario de Estudios Europeas, Universidad de San Pablo in Madrid; and a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Education

Yale University (1977 BA magna cum laude); Yale Law School (1980 JD).