Covington Named Transatlantic Arbitration Team of the Year

Covington Named Transatlantic Arbitration Team of the Year

June 14, 2019

LONDON—The American Lawyer and Legal Week have named Covington its Transatlantic Arbitration Team of the Year. The award focuses on a single case that involved significant lawyering on both sides of the Atlantic and that demonstrated excellence in legal expertise and innovation, project management skills, and teamwork.

The publications recognized Covington for its representation of Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company, NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine, in an international arbitration against the Russian Federation. In February, a tribunal sitting at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in The Hague, concluded that Russia unlawfully expropriated Naftogaz’s assets in Crimea, in violation of Russia’s obligations under a bilateral investment treaty between Russia and Ukraine. Naftogaz’s assets have been valued at $US5 billion, plus interest.

Partner David Pinsky and special counsel Erin Thomas in New York, partner Marney Cheek in Washington, DC, partner Jeremy Wilson in London and associates Josh Picker, William Lowery, Daniel Allman, Paris Aboro, and Alex Gudko represent Naftogaz. Denis Lysenko, Pavlo Byelousov, and Myroslava Savchuk of Aequo Law Firm in Ukraine acted as local counsel, in Ukraine, on the matter.

Covington represents a number of investors who have asserted claims against the Russian Federation related to the unlawful seizure of assets in Crimea. Covington also represents the Government of Ukraine in contentious cases against the Russian Federation before the International Court of Justice and tribunals constituted under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.