During Paris Arbitration Week 2025, Oxera are looking forward to hosting two panel discussions at the offices of Quinn Emanuel and Clifford Chance on Monday 7 April, to explore some of the pressing issues in arbitration today.

The panel discussions are:

Damages claims with too little or too much information: experiences from investment arbitrations and post-M&A disputes

11:30 – 14:00 CET
Quinn Emanuel’s offices, Paris

The robustness of a damages claim depends crucially on the availability and reliability of the underlying evidence. But, more often than not, there are significant challenges with such underlying evidence. For example:

• How do you quantify damages when there is a lack of relevant contemporaneous information and/or the reliability of such information is questionable? Taking the example of investment treaty arbitrations, the alleged breaches can date back many years such that the underlying assets/companies no longer exist and there is very little to no contemporaneous information. Is it still possible to construct a reasonable counterfactual scenario and present a robust damages claim?
• How to filter out noise if there is too much information? Taking the example of post-M&A cases, parties and their financial advisors are likely to have prepared various valuation documents throughout the transaction. How much weight should be placed on these documents given the preliminary nature of some of these documents and/or the underlying motivations of parties at the time to under or overvalue the asset?

Speakers include:

• Min Shi and Mohammed Khalil, Partners at Oxera
• Mark McNeill, Partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
• Catalina Echeverri Gallego, Partner at Wordstone Dispute Resolution
• Hannah Eckhoff, Director Legal Dispute Resolution at BioNTech SE

Latest legal developments and economic debates in crypto related arbitrations

15:00 – 17:30 CET
Clifford Chance’s offices, Paris

The novelty of crypto assets has led to significant innovation in arbitral rules and debates on fundamental legal and economic principles for arbitrating disputes involving such assets. For example:

• What are the benefits and challenges of smart contracts and ‘on chain’ arbitrations?
• What are the latest rules and procedures for crypto related arbitrations?
• Is cryptocurrency legally and economically a currency?
• Do crypto assets have intrinsic value, and are traditional valuation approaches still useful for quantifying damages related to such assets?

Speakers include:

• Min Shi, Partner at Oxera
• Alix de Zitter (Dr.), Avocat at Clifford Chance Europe
• Sarah Green, International Arbitrator and Mediator and Professor of Law at Newmans Row
• Emily Hay, Managing Counsel at ArbBoutique
• Erin Marsh, Associate General Counsel in International Litigation at Coinbase

Discover more and register for both events here.