Biography: Arbitration

Dr Marc Blessing, honorary president of the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA), has been practising dispute resolution for over 35 years. Now of counsel, he was a partner of the law firm Baer & Karrer from 1979 to 2007. Marc Blessing handled 225 international arbitration cases, with over 100 assignments as presiding arbitrator; in addition, he has numerous nominations as sole arbitrator or party-nominated arbitrator. He handles cases under the rules of all major arbitration institutions, as well as on ad hoc basis and under the UNCITRAL Rules.

Disputes he had to adjudicate specifically concerned matters of international commerce, European and US competition law, mergers and acquisitions, finance, joint ventures, investment disputes and large construction projects (PPPs, BOT, BOOT), oil and gas, IP matters; many disputes involved states and state-controlled entities; BIT and ECT disputes.

Marc Blessing is also in demand for his extensive mediation experience, having successfully mediated in the areas of antitrust, commercial, industrial, political and BIT disputes.

Since the 1990s, he has been a regular lecturer in several university LLM – and executive MBL – programmes, teaching the subjects of international arbitration and EU competition law.

He is a member of the ICC Commission on Arbitration, past chair of the ICC Taskforce on Competition Law Arbitrations; court member of the LCIA (1992–2004); member of the WIPO Arbitration Council (1994–2001); vice president of IFCAI (1991–2001); chartered arbitrator CIArb (Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London) and an IBA member.

He has authored some 70 publications in the field of international arbitration and antitrust/competition law. He is fluet in English, German, French and Italian, and has a basic knowledge of Russian.