Volterra Fietta

Number of partners: 4 (and 1 counsel)

Number of associates: 20

Number of other fee-earners: 5

Areas of Practice 

Public International Law: 100%

Investment Treaty Arbitration (Investors and States): 35%

State-to-State Disputes: 30%  

Public International Law Advisory (including Boundary Negotiations; Treaty Drafting; International Organisations): 20%

Commercial Arbitration: 10% 

Business & Human Rights: 5% 

THE FIRM  

Volterra Fietta is an elite law firm that is specialised entirely in public international law. Since its foundation, Volterra Fietta has been the only law firm focused exclusively on this field of law.

Volterra Fietta has is the largest team of dedicated public international law lawyers in the world.The firm’s lawyers are world leaders in their field.Each Volterra Fietta lawyer has at least one degree in public international law. They all have significant practical experience that clients find invaluable.The firm’s senior lawyers are globally recognised as thought-leaders and the firm practices, teaches and writes at the highest level.

Based on its considerable track record of success, leading global legal directories routinely rank Volterra Fietta in the top tier of this legal field.

PRINCIPAL AREAS OF WORK  

Volterra Fietta advises the world’s most sophisticated States, largest multinational companies and influential international organisations to advise them on their most important legal matters.

Notably, Volterra Fietta is one of only a handful of law firms in the world that regularly represent governments in State-to-State disputes before the International Court of Justice (the “ICJ”), the Permanent Court of Arbitration (the “PCA”) and tribunals constituted under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. In the last few years, Volterra Fietta has been counsel to States in five cases before the ICJ.

The firm has one of the world’s largest and most active investor-State arbitration practices.The firm’s lawyers have brought cases for investors for tens of billions of dollars – and have similarly defended States from claims for billions of dollars as well.The firm has never lost a single case for a Respondent State and, instead, has successfully defendant its State clients from over US$11 billion in claims.The firm’s track record obtaining victories for investors of billions of dollars is similarly impressive.

The firm is consulted on every aspect of public international law, including: bilateral and multilateral investment treaties; business and human rights; land and maritime territorial and boundary disputes; the law of treaties and treaty interpretation; property rights and expropriation; the Energy Charter Treaty; oil concessions; air and water rights; treaty negotiations and accession; State responsibility; choice of law, jurisdiction and enforcement proceedings; international maritime law; sovereign and diplomatic privilege and immunity; project-specific international agreements between host States; offshore oil and gas (and other resources); straddling resources; trans-boundary pipelines; international human rights law (including its relevance to transnational business enterprises and transnational litigation); State succession issues; international environmental law; sovereign debt; energy, mining and infrastructure projects; international trade law; foreign corrupt practices; the laws of war and economic sanctions.

CLIENTS  

Based in London, the firm has a global reach, acting for States, private entities and international organisations in contentious and advisory matters all over the world.

The majority of the firm’s work is highly confidential. However, recent highlights of the firm’s international work that is in the public domain include: representing Barbados, the Republic of Colombia, the United Arab Emirates and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in various proceedings before the ICJ; representing Malaysia in its defence against a fraudulent arbitration “award” for US$16 billion; representing the Republic of Croatia, the Arab Republic of Egypt, the Republic of Lithuania and the Federal Republic of Nigeria in ICSID arbitrations; representing various subsidiaries of US companies Owens Illinois Inc. and Koch Industries Inc. in a number of ICSID arbitrations and annulment proceedings; and representing Bahrain and the United States of America in UK courts in relation to sovereign immunity matters.

In addition to English, French, Spanish and Arabic, the firm advises its clients in Cantonese, Chinese, Dutch, German, Italian, Portuguese and Russian.