Albert Jan van den Berg


Albert Jan van den Berg is a founding partner of in Brussels, an Emeritus Professor of Law at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, a visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC and at the School of Law, Beijing and a member of the Advisory Board and Faculty of the Geneva Master of Laws in International Dispute Settlement, Geneva.

Education

Van den Berg holds a Doctor of Laws from the Erasmus University Rotterdam, a Docteur en droit from the University of Aix-en-Provence, a Master of Comparative Jurisprudence from the Institute on Foreign Law of New York University and a Master of Laws from the University of Amsterdam.

Career

His early professional career includes positions as partner at the law firms of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Amsterdam, in Amsterdam and in Rotterdam and as Attorney-at-Law in , Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. Albert Jan van den Berg is a former President and Secretary-General of the in Rotterdam and a former Vice-President of the London Court of International Arbitration . Furthermore, he has worked at the department of international commercial arbitration of the and as private assistant to Professor :nl:Piet Sanders |Pieter Sanders.

Work in Arbitration

Albert Jan van den Berg is and has been sole, presiding and party-appointed arbitrator in numerous international arbitrations, Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement, , , Energy Charter Treaty, International Chamber of Commerce, International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, LCIA, North American Free Trade Agreement, NAI, , , , and United Nations Commission on International Trade Law relating to, inter alia, airports, banking, broadcasting, construction, defence projects, distributorship, electricity and gas supply, fashion, futures and options, gambling, information technology, insurance and reinsurance, investments, joint ventures, licensing, media, mining, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, post-M&A, post-privatization, professional associations, sales, satellites, shale gas, solar energy, sports, tax, telecom and turnkey projects. Awards rendered by Albert Jan van den Berg as presiding, sole or party-appointed arbitrator include:
Furthermore, Albert Jan van den Berg frequently acts as counsel in commercial arbitrations and as expert before national courts on issues involving Dutch law and the .
Albert Jan van den Berg is on many panels of arbitrators, including: AAA, New York; , Vienna; Arbitral Tribunal for Football, World Cup Division for the 2002 FIFA World Cup, Geneva; , Beijing; Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre ; , Jakarta; ICSID, Washington; ; NAI; ; and SIAC.
Furthermore, Albert Jan van den Berg is a former President of the , a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a member of: the ; the LCIA Company; the Supervisory Board of NAI; the Board of Trustees of the ; the Advisory Board of the MIDS; the Academic Council of the ; and the Board of Trustees of the Institute of International Commercial Law of Pace University School of Law.
Fluent in Dutch, English, and French, Albert Jan van den Berg has authored and edited numerous publications on various topics of international arbitration. An extended list of publications and related publications can be found in the following websites: and . Albert Jan van den Berg is particularly known for his commentary on the New York Convention, “The New York Arbitration Convention of 1958 – Towards a Uniform Judicial Interpretation”, originally his doctoral thesis under the supervision of Professor :nl:Piet Sanders |Pieter Sanders.
Albert Jan van den Berg currently serves as the General Editor of , and of ICCA Congress Series and is a member of the editorial boards of , and Rotterdam’s Tijdschrift voor Arbitrage.
Albert Jan van den Berg is also the author of the website , a website that provides access to information regarding the New York Convention in general, its history, its interpretation and application by the courts, a bibliography, and other relevant matters such as a “draft” for a revised New York Convention, authored by Albert Jan van den Berg himself. The website also provides easy-to-use tools to find case law on how the courts have interpreted and applied the New York Convention's provisions, such information being provided in association with ICCA and Kluwer Arbitration.
Van den Berg was named the world's leading commercial arbitrator by the International Who's Who of Business Lawyers in 2006 and 2011. In 2013 he received the “Best Prepared and Most Responsive Arbitrator” award by .

Criticism

With regard to the controversy surrounding Investor-State Arbitration, van den Berg was named as a member of an elite group of 15 arbitrators who handle most investment treaty arbitral proceedings in a report by NGO Corporate Europe Observatory. According to the report, van den Berg supported
contradictory outcomes in two cases brought against Argentina following the state's economic crisis in 2001/2002 even though the facts and reasoning of defence of both lawsuits were nearly identical. However, the criticism does not seem to be justified. Professor Van den Berg never issues dissenting opinions and opposes their use by party-appointed arbitrators in investor-State arbitration. Within that perspective, one cannot attribute the decision of an entire tribunal to one member.