Hogan Lovells has announced that Maria Boyce, Jennifer Smith and Cristina Rodriguez will be joining the Litigation and Arbitration practice group as partners in the firm’s Houston office.

“As Houstonians with global practices and perspectives, Maria, Jennifer, and Cristina are the kind of market leaders who will add to our diverse, collaborative, and client-centered team,” said Stephen Immelt, CEO of Hogan Lovells. “Houston is critical for many of our energy clients in Texas and international clients in Latin America and beyond. We welcome Maria, Jennifer, and Cristina and the ability they bring to serve clients in this important market.”

Boyce, Smith, and Rodriguez join Hogan Lovells from Baker Botts. A Senior Litigation Partner who served three terms on the firm’s Executive Committee, Boyce previously served as partner-in-charge of the Houston office and head of the Houston office litigation department. Smith, who is a Qualified Solicitor in England and Wales, in addition to being licensed in Texas, assisted in opening the Baker Botts London office and spent eight years of her career there. She has also served on the firm’s Executive Committee, and has served as Deputy Chair of the Firm wide Litigation Department for seven years. Rodriguez was a founding member of the firm’s diversity committee and head of the professional liability practice group, as well as the former Hiring Partner of the Houston office.

“We are excited to be joining Hogan Lovells. The firm’s dynamic global platform fits perfectly with our practices and offers unique opportunities for our clients,” said Rodriguez. “Hogan Lovells has a diverse culture and a strong commitment to Houston, which is ideal for our group and our clients.”

“Not only are Maria, Jennifer, and Cristina first chair trial lawyers at the vanguard of dispute resolution in the 21st century, they are leaders in the Houston community,” said Bruce Oakley, managing partner of the firm’s Houston Office, in a release. “We could not be more pleased with this transformational step in the growth of our Houston office.” The release continues:

About the Lawyers

Maria Boyce: A highly respected and experienced trial lawyer, Boyce focuses on complex commercial litigation and intellectual property litigation. She has tried fraud, contract, patent infringement, trade secrets, and products liability cases within the energy and technology sectors to juries throughout the United States. She earned a B.A. cum laude from Connecticut College and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law.

Jennifer Smith: Smith concentrates her practice on complex international arbitration and international dispute resolution. She is a Qualified Solicitor in England and Wales and, having spent eight years of her career in London, she brings a great deal of experience in resolution of cross-border disputes arising out of international contracts in many industries, including energy, petrochemicals, shipping and technology. Smith is ranked in Chambers Global and is praised for her “‘intellect and technical understanding of the issues that are at the forefront of the energy industry.” She earned a B.A magna cum laude from Wellesley College and a J.D. with honors from The University of Texas School of Law.

Cristina Rodriguez: Rodriguez has built a strong practice in professional liability, employment, commercial and securities litigation both in state and federal courts. Her practice includes internal investigations and labor and employment counseling. Fluent in Spanish, Cristina has represented businesses that operate in Mexico, South America and Central America. She earned a B.A. summa cum laude from the University of Miami and a J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School.

About Hogan Lovells

Hogan Lovells is a leading global legal practice providing business-oriented legal advice and high-quality service across its exceptional breadth of practices to clients around the world.

“Hogan Lovells” or the “firm” is an international legal practice that includes Hogan Lovells US LLP and Hogan Lovells International LLP. For more information, see www.hoganlovells.com.

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The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found that employee agreements to arbitrate may be obtained through written acknowledgments referencing company manuals, reports Pepper Hamilton in a new paper. An employee’s agreement to abide by a company manual is sufficient to send Title VII claims to an arbitrator.

“Arbitration remains a preferred forum for many employers, yet courts are often wary of enforcing arbitration agreements against employee-plaintiffs,” the paper says. “This has often been the case where employees made claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provides for a statutory jury right that potentially conflicts with the Federal Arbitration Act.”

Authors of the paper are partners Jeffrey M. Goldman, Sharon R. Klein, Matthew H. Adler and associate Kevin Crisp.

Read the paper.

Hogan Lovells has announced that , focusing on complex international disputes involving joint ventures, international investments, service agreements, construction projects, hospitality, banking and securities.

Haridi counsels corporations and financial institutions from across the globe in proceedings under the arbitration rules of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA/ICDR), the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA), and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL).

“We are thrilled to welcome Samaa to our global IA group and the New York office in particular. As the demand for international arbitration continues to grow, clients expect us not only to have a deep bench, but also the best lawyers with the unique set of skills, experiences, and know-how needed in different regions of the world and different industries,” said Daniel E. González, Global Head of Hogan Lovells’ International Arbitration practice. “Samaa, as a recognized international arbitrator and advocate, is exactly the kind of partner we want and clients expect.”

Haridi serves on the Board of Directors of the Arab Bankers Association of North America (ABANA) and JDRF (formerly known as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation). She is a member of the panel of arbitrators of the American Arbitration Association’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), the panel of arbitrators of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), and the panel of arbitrators of the Dubai International Arbitration Center (DIAC). Additionally, Haridi is qualified to practice in New York, California, and England & Wales, and is trilingual in English, French, and Arabic – routinely handling work in all three languages.

“I am excited to join Hogan Lovells and to reunite with my former colleagues and friends Ollie Armas, Luis Enrique Graham, Thomas Pieper and Carlos Martinez,” said Haridi. “We all pretty much started our international arbitration careers at Thacher Proffitt &Wood. We took circuitous paths but we’re back together now and I am very excited to plug into the phenomenal platform of Hogan Lovells. I am so pleased to join a firm with such a strong reputation in New York, and worldwide.”

Haridi joins from Weil, Gotshal & Manges where she was a partner in the International Arbitration practice in Weil’s New York office.

About Hogan Lovells

Hogan Lovells is a leading global legal practice providing business-oriented legal advice and high-quality service across its exceptional breadth of practices to clients around the world.

“Hogan Lovells” or the “firm” is an international legal practice that includes Hogan Lovells US LLP and Hogan Lovells International LLP. For more information, see www.hoganlovells.com.

The First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in First State Ins. Co. v. National Casualty Co., a case involving reinsurance and retrocessional agreements, that the agreements between the parties contained an honorable engagement provision, which directs the arbitrators to consider each agreement as an honorable engagement, not merely a legal one.

A post by Baker & McKenzie and posted on Lexology discusses the case in detail.

The court hadn’t considered such a clause before, but the clause empowers arbitrators to grant forms of relief not explicitly mentioned in the underlying agreement. “Thus, because the arbitrators were authorized to grant equitable remedies, and because the reservation of rights procedure in the award was such a remedy, there was no basis to vacate the award,” the post explains.

Read the article.

In an article published on Butler Snow’s website, Lauren Patton describes a contract situation in which an executive has signed a contract “on behalf of” the company, but did not sign the contract individually. During the course of the matter, the third party brings claims in court against the executive in his individual capacity, and the executive wants to force those claims to arbitration.

She discusses whether the fact that the executive did not sign the contract containing the arbitration provision in his individual capacity is fatal to enforcement of the provision.

She cites prior cases and common law in her discussion.

Read the white paper.

The 5th U.S. Circuit court of Appeals ruled in an arbitration award that a district court had wrongly concluded that the court was the proper decision-maker on contract formation, according to a report produced by Stinson Leonard Street and posted on JDSupra.

“Although courts are presumptively authorized to decide whether an arbitration agreement exists, the Fifth Circuit found the parties altered that presumption by ‘submitting, briefing, and generally disputing that issue throughout the arbitration proceedings’,” wrote Liz Kramer for the firm. The case was OMG, L.P. v. Heritage Auctions, Inc.,  2015 WL 2151779 (5th Cir. May 8, 2015).

She wrote that OMG claimed that it was owed more commissions than the auction house had paid it for firearm sales. The case involved a dispute between the parties on how to interpret the term “merchandise.”

Read the article.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not addressed whether the availability of class arbitration is a substantive “gateway” issue for the courts if the parties have not explicitly delegated the decision to the arbitrator or whether it is a procedural question to be decided by arbitrators, points out Moore & Van Allen in a paper published on its MVA Litigation Blog.

“In the absence of a decree from the Supreme Court on this issue, companies could find themselves facing unfavorable, but reviewable, court determinations in some jurisdictions, while being more tightly bound in other jurisdictions by arbitrator determinations subjecting them to class arbitration against their will,” the paper says. “There are, however, steps that companies can and should take to minimize the risk that this conundrum will manifest and derail their dispute resolution strategies.”

Read the white paper.

The words “forced arbitration” might not appear in a contract and instead are referred to by the term “dispute-resolution mechanism.” But once you sign on the dotted line or click the “I agree” button online, the options for seeking justice are tossed out the window, says an article published by Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley.

“Forced arbitration lurks in the lengthy documents all of us sign at some point in our lives when we accept a job, buy tickets for travel, enter a cell-phone agreement or rent an apartment,” says the author of the article, Search Denney attorneyLaurie Briggs. “And those are just a few of the dozens of examples of us waiving our rights to sue should something go wrong. Radin describes the cunning contracts as boilerplates.”

Read the article.

The Harvard Law School Program on Dispute Resolution offers a free white paper offering advice on understanding how relationships can help someone to negotiate even the most difficult conversations.

On its website, the Program on Dispute Resolution says the free special report provides strategies on successfully negotiating difficult disputes, preserving relationships, and reaching mutually beneficial agreements.

Topics include how to:

• Foster relationships by building rapport
• Manage conflict in long-term relationships
• Negotiate business decisions with family members

Download the free white paper.

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s Litigation Committee presents a free on-demand webinar on the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process.

The event was sponsored by Kobre & Kim LLP.

On its website, ACC says the value of judgments and arbitration awards coming out of large-scale litigation continues to rise, so does the challenge of enforcing them. Sophisticated judgment debtors today often hold assets protected in a variety of structures in offshore financial centers around the world, which create challenging roadblocks to efficient and prompt recovery that can only be overcome with the right tools and strategies.

In this webcast, a group of internationally based attorneys, experienced in enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets share their first-hand insights into the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process. The panel discussion includes analysis of effective asset tracing, utilizing specific legal tools available in the U.S., Europe, Asia and offshore jurisdictions as well as the alternative fee structures available to minimize costs and risks.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

When negotiating and drafting technology outsourcing contracts and managing the contracts, there are a number of ways that the parties can seek to minimize the risk of conflicts that require litigation.

Mayer Brown has posted the presentation slides from a webinar on this topic.

These potential hot spots include specification of requirements, new service claims, change control, technology transformation plans, deliverable milestones, compliance with service levels, termination and transition assistance, the firm says on its website.

Mayer Brown litigation partner Robert Kriss and Business & Technology Sourcing partner Daniel Masur discuss contract provisions and contract management techniques that address these potential hot spots. They also offer suggestions for avoiding disputes and, when disputes are unavoidable, for prevailing in any resulting litigation.

See the webinar slides.

The Association of Corporate Counsel and Kobre & Kim LLP present a free on-demand webinar on enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets.

In this webcast, a group of internationally based attorneys, experienced in enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets share their first-hand insights into the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process, the ACC said in a release.

The panel discussion includes analysis of effective asset tracing, utilizing specific legal tools available in the U.S., Europe, Asia and offshore jurisdictions as well as the alternative fee structures available to minimize costs and risks.

See the free on-demand webinar.