Willem van Baren

Willem’s practice covers a wide range of corporate and commercial litigation and arbitration, with a particular emphasis on international arbitration in, among others, joint venture, M&A, financial services, investment, projects, energy, oil and gas, marine, aviation and insurance disputes. Willem is a CEDR accredited mediator and also sits as an arbitrator. He is the acting President of the Netherlands Arbitration Institute.

The latest editions of Legal 500 and Chambers rank Willem as a market leading individual for both Arbitration and Commercial Litigation and quote clients as saying that he is “the one to go to when deep or detailed knowledge of the underlying issues is required” and mention him as “a top arbitrator! He is knowledgeable, hardworking; not arrogant but friendly and a pleasure to work with“.

Professional qualifications

• Exempt european lawyer, England and Wales, 2000
• Admitted as advocaat, Netherlands, 1988

Allen & Overy:

We’ll do that by staying one step ahead and by constantly challenging ourselves to bring new and original ways of thinking to the most complex legal challenges our clients face.

Over the past year we have worked with some of the world’s most sophisticated businesses on market-leading transactions that have changed their industries. This includes, advising on the largest oil refinery project in Vietnam (Nghi Son) and the joint venture between H.C. Starck and Vietnam’s largest private sector company, Masan Group; the ground-breaking creation of Abu Dhabi’s first Financial Free Zone, the Abu Dhabi Global Market; and representing Novartis in its successful patent battle with MedImmune over Novartis’s blockbuster drug Lucentis – to name just a few achievements.

We are able to build on the foundations of our long heritage to attract the most talented people and develop the high-performance culture necessary to innovate and change the face of business.

Our commitment to help our clients deliver their global strategies has seen us build a truly global network now spanning 46 offices in 32 countries. We have also developed strong ties with relationship law firms in more than 100 countries where we do not have a presence.

This network has allowed us to become one of the largest and most connected law firms in our peer group with a global reach and local depth that is simply unrivalled.

So when we talk about global coverage, we’re not just talking about having offices in some important cities around the world. We mean being able to combine our international resources and sector expertise to work on cross-border transactions directly in the markets and regions important to our clients.