Moritz Schmitt

LL.M. (NYU)
Partner // Rechtsanwalt

moritz.schmitt@rothorn.legal
m +49 151 70 60 30 71

Moritz is one of the few superstars of the younger generation of arbitration practitioners in Germany

Who’s Who Legal 2021 – Arbitration Future Leaders
He is an impeccable lawyer with excellent advocacy skills

Who’s Who Legal 2021 – Arbitration Future Leaders
Moritz is extremely well connected and certainly one of the leading names of the future generation

Who’s Who Legal 2021 – Arbitration Future Leaders
Moritz Schmitt is ‘one of the superstars of the younger generation‘.

Who´s Who Legal 2020 - Arbitration Future Leaders
Moritz is ‘dedicated to his cases‘ and has the ‘ability to drive matters forward and look for alternative pragmatic solutions to complex topics‘.

Who´s Who Legal 2020 - Arbitration Future Leaders

Moritz Schmitt advises and represents German and foreign clients in international arbitrations and before German courts.

His clients include leading industrial manufacturers, such as renewable energy, automotive, aerospace, healthcare or engineering companies, as well as financial services providers. Moritz has handled a broad variety of disputes with a particular focus on commercial liability, distribution, joint venture, post-M&A as well as IP-disputes. He is familiar with various substantive and procedural laws as well as the major arbitration rules (including ICC, DIS, LCIA, and UNCITRAL Rules).

Moritz also sits as presiding and party-appointed arbitrator on select cases.

Prior to founding rothorn legal, Moritz was a Principal Associate in the International Arbitration Group and the Financial Institutions Disputes Group at Freshfields. He has worked in the firm’s offices in Frankfurt, Vienna, Paris, Hamburg, and Hong Kong. Moritz has also gained valuable insights as a secondee to the litigation/arbitration team of Airbus in Toulouse.

Moritz has been consistently recognised in Who’s Who Legal as a Future Leader in Arbitration since 2019, where he has received praise for being “dedicated to his cases” as well as his “ability to drive matters forward and look for alternative pragmatic solutions to complex topics”. Since 2022, he is ranked among the “most highly regarded – partners (EMEA)”.

Moritz is a co-chair of DIS40 – the young professionals organisation of the German Arbitration Institute (Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit, DIS) with more than 1,800 members. He previously acted as a regional representative of the Young International Arbitration Group (YIAG), the young professionals organisation of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA).

Moritz co-teaches a course on international commercial arbitration as a visiting professor in the master’s program of the Université Catholique de Lille. He frequently speaks and publishes on contemporary questions of international arbitration.

Moritz speaks German and English.

Experience (Excerpt)

Representing a European aerospace company in arbitrations with its suppliers.
Representing a German listed automotive group in a commercial arbitration with general distributors
Representing a German listed engineering company in a post-M&A arbitration
Representing an Austrian listed company in several arbitrations with its Asian joint venture partners
Representing a European financial institution in appraisal proceedings related to a squeeze out

Qualification

Rechtsanwalt (Germany)
University of Freiburg (Germany)
New York University School of Law (US), Fulbright Scholar
University of Uppsala (Sweden)
Legal Training (Referendariat), Hanseatic Upper Regional Court in Hamburg (Germany) with seats in Freshfields’ offices in Hamburg and Hong Kong

Publications (Excerpt)

Frankfurt court permits a tribunal’s search for the truth on the internet, Kluwer Arbitration Blog, 12 May 2021
Commentary on Art. 1 and 6 CISG
in Brunner, Christoph / Gottlieb, Benjamin, Kommentar zum Übereinkommen der Vereinten Nationen über Verträge über den internationalen Warenkauf
(available in German and English)
Commentary on EU Regulation 912/2014 establishing a framework for managing financial responsibility linked to investor-to-state dispute settlement tribunals established by international agreements to which the European Union is party
in Krenzler/Herrmann/Niestedt, EU-Außenwirtschafts- und Zollrecht (in German)
Commentary on EU Regulation 1219/2012 establishing transitional arrangements for bilateral investment agreements between member states and third countries
in Krenzler/Herrmann/Niestedt, EU-Außenwirtschafts- und Zollrecht (in German)
Introduction to International Commercial Arbitration / Einführung in das Schiedsverfahrensrecht, JURA 2010, 520 (in German)