Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution

Doing business in today’s complex global economy requires careful planning, sound business practices and ongoing awareness. Even so, the ability to avoid legal pitfalls is not guaranteed. When business disputes arise between global corporations, it nearly always involves a combination of arbitration and litigation, often in multiple jurisdictions.

Colson Hicks Eidson has a quarter century of experience representing clients in local, national and international arbitration proceedings. We offer clients a combination of courtroom knowledge and comprehensive understanding of domestic and international arbitration to resolve complex disputes.

Partner Joseph Matthews heads the arbitration and alternative dispute resolution practice, spending time in both the Florida and Washington, D.C. offices. He has been actively involved in the field of arbitration, both domestic and international, for nearly 25 years and has served as either an advocate or arbitrator in more than 150 cases administered by the American Arbitration Association and several major international forums, on cases pertaining to contract, securities and construction disputes; fraud; insurance; healthcare and international business conflicts. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Arbitration Association. The 2012 edition of Best Lawyers in America selected Joe in the categories of bet-the-company litigation and commercial litigation.

Practice Highlights

• Representing a U.S. businessman in an investment claim against an Eastern European government arising out of a failed project to build a blood plasma fractionation facility.

• A dispute between Consorcio Barr, S.A., the Venezuelan corporation that built and owns a real estate project in Caracas, and the Four Seasons Hotel chain. When the firm got involved, Consorcio Barr had already suffered several serious judgments entered against it by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and an extraordinary anti-suit injunction entered by an arbitration panel of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution. Such extraordinary remedies have become critical strategic tools in transnational disputes. The firm’s appellate practice group handled the appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which vacated the anti-suit injunction.

• In 2002, the firm obtained a multi-million dollar arbitration award in Washington, D.C. against a major international accounting firm for accounting malpractice.

• In 2001, firm members obtained a federal court judgment for $16 million confirming an arbitration award against the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians for breach of contract.

• Colson Hicks Eidson pioneered the use of arbitration to resolve the damage claims of victims of international air disasters using arbitration as an alternative to litigation arising from the crash of an AeroPeru flight on October 2, 1996.