WAGNER Arbitration

Trust the process   Our 31st #arbitrattoria lunch bowl with Anne-Karin Grill addressed the role of counsel in a #mediation, our overarching topic this year.   As you can tell from the photo, Anne-Karin advocated the importance of room design and the ability to create a conversational atmosphere in the right tone. But not only that: process design is a key factor for a successful mediation, which is where proactive involvement of counsel seeks balance with the trusted leadership of the well-chosen mediator.   It was great to have you as a lunch bowl guest once again, dear Anne-Karin! Cheers!

“We need to learn to argue with each other again”   Many powerful statements like the one above were made during our 4th #Wendegeschichten evening with Dr. Doris Geiersberger and Reinhard Singer last Thursday. They told us what it was like to move to #Rostock in the early 1990s shortly after the fall of the wall. They came from the South of Western Germany and built a life in the “North of the East” – Prof. Singer as a law professor at the newly re-instated faculty of law at Universität Rostock and as a judge at the Rostock Court of Appeals, Dr. Geiersberger as an employment lawyer, building one of the most important commercial law firms in Rostock over nearly three decades.   How many people this outstanding "power couple", as one would say today, has accompanied, supported, encouraged, and shaped over the course of these 30 years can hardly be put into words. What was important to them: the #reunification was and is not a one-way street from West to East. It goes both ways. And it still is a painful process. One could say that this was the underlying agreement in the controversial discussion that followed, and which revolved around topics such as the growing radicalization of political parties and voters and the lack of democratic debate and commitment.    To be continued - the 5th and last Wendegeschichte will take place a few days prior to the actual 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. Do let us know if you care to join.   *Kindly note that the Wendegeschichten are held in German. Too much would get lost in translation.

Do you represent and advise clients in mediation proceedings? Do you always know what your role is? Are you aware of the tools you could use and how to best communicate with your client, the opposing party and the mediator? Tune in this Friday, 12.45 CEST, to discuss this and more with Anne-Karin Grill in our 31st lunch bowl. Details on the event page below. 

Our lunch bowl series on mediation continues this month - with the 31st lunch bowl on "how to counsel in mediation" with Anne-Karin Grill set to take place next Friday, 18 October. Anne-Karin will share her thoughts on the counsel's role in a #mediation.    Anne-Karin is the only person so far set to speak for the second time in our lunch bowl series - and we are very happy that she joins our virtual lunch table from beautiful Vienna once more. Log-in and event details below. 👇

Out now: IBA Toolkit on Insolvency and Arbitration   The International Bar Association has recently published a Toolkit at the intersection of Insolvency & Arbitration. The Toolkit aims to provide practical guidance to parties, counsel and arbitrators alike in situations where a party to an arbitration is also subject to insolvency proceedings.   Several relevant legal and practical issues arise at the intersection of insolvency and arbitration – and the Toolkit provides National Reports from 26 different countries, explaining how these issues are dealt with in different jurisdictions. The National Report for Germany was prepared by Carl-Christian Kramer and Philipp K. Wagner. The Toolkit also includes a helpful checklist tool and an explanatory memorandum.   This product is the result of several years of work, after the IBA Arbitration Committee established a Working Group to examine the intersection of insolvency and arbitration. We invite you to check out the results of that work (https://lnkd.in/du3p29Th), and thank the Co-Chairs Hamid Abdulkareem, Simon Batifort, and Dr Manuel Penades for their guidance.

A very special anniversary - 30th Lunch Bowl with Jörg Risse Our #arbitrattoria lunch bowls have been part of our annual schedule since the pandemic, and we were honored to welcome Prof. Dr. Jörg Risse as our 30th lunch bowl guest last week.    Jörg spoke about a topic that is close to his heart: the importance for lawyers to look beyond the law and into the neighboring disciplines such as art and literature, psychology and math, architecture and IT.   He even took us on a little manipulation exercise to illustrate how unconscious bias reflects upon decision making processes (although we will never really understand how some of us ended up with a rat or ape in France rather than an elephant in Denmark).    Jörg concluded by highlighting the importance of reforming the German legal educational system which has basically not changed since the entering into force of the German Civil Code in 1900, especially if lawyers were to have a relevant impact on society. He turned to the younger generation for the necessary impulses, to the older generation for using their influence to make it happen, and to both for engaging in discussions on the topic with one another.   Many thanks, dear Jörg!

“Hunting the lost treasures💰of the GDR”   This could have somewhat been the title of our 3rd #Wendegeschichten evening with Rolf Trittmann and Christof Elssner last Thursday in the aftermath of the Berlin Dispute Resolution Days.   After Rolf Trittmann shared his experience of bringing East-German lawyers up to speed with the West-German legal system immediately after the fall of the wall, Christof Elßner took everyone on his 15-year-long journey of chasing dissimulated SED assets in Austria and Switzerland, a case known to insiders as the #Novum case.   As our Wendegeschichten are subject to the Chatham House Rules, we cannot share more details, but may be these: Rolf Trittmann found it unlikely that Gregor Gysi may have sat in one of his 30 (!) one-day lectures on West-German civil and commercial law which he gave to his East-German audience within the frames of a “lawyers-help-lawyers” initiative; and Christof Elßner was the first generation of exchange students from East-Germany who went to the USA before the reunification with the help of YFU - Deutsches Youth For Understanding Komitee e.V., and who returned to a reunified Germany having departed from a country that had meanwhile disappeared.   The next Wendegeschichten are coming up in October. Let us know if you wish to join!

Friendly reminder that our next lunch bowl is taking place this upcoming Friday - join Jörg Risse and Philipp K. Wagner to discuss why what Jörg calls the neighboring disciplines "beyond the law", such as maths, finance and psychology, matter in legal practice and how they can be used efficiently in advocacy, decision-making and more. 👇

Join our next lunch bowl on Friday, 20 September at 12.45 CET, to discuss the disciplines “neighboring” law and why they matter in legal practice with the one and only Jörg Risse. Details and access link below. 👇

💫 Star shower in Berlin 💫 As you may have seen, and yet not heard, we had another #Werkstatt concert at the office last week. The Dotsenko family from #Charkiw, who has been seeking refuge in Bavaria since the outbreak of Russia’s war on Ukraine, came to visit Berlin and gave two truly overwhelming concerts of guitar and piano music - one at the firm and one in Philipp’s garden. In light of the unimaginable hardships that the family and their fellow countrymen have been and are still going through, the joy, passion, and optimism expressed through the classical pieces they played, seemed almost surreal. And yet, one could only conclude that their music carries hope. For all of us. One masterpiece among their program, reaching from Mozart to Rodrigo and Albeniz to Zawinul, was #Sternenregen (star shower) by Ukrainian composer Eugen Stefan. A glimpse of this piece is displayed in the video. Something special happened in each and every one in attendance. Thank you for opening up our souls and spirit, Volodymyr Dotsenko, Viktoriia Tkachenko, and Olha Dotsenko! We hope you will return soon! And until then, may hope carry on and may the music last. 🇺🇦💛💙🇩🇪