Exclusive dispute resolution lawyers establish a major law firm, specializing in international and critical dispute resolution and corporate crisis, along with partner Bettina Knoetzl, on Vienna’s iconic Michaelerplatz, right in the middle of the city.

Vienna – “With Austria’s best dispute lawyers we are focusing on four core areas: business disputes, representations before national courts and arbitration tribunals, business crime, crisis management and compliance. Our aim is to be the unparalleled quality leader in the market”, announce the six partners who have been operating since 1st January 2016 at Herrengasse 1, near the iconic Hofburg. In addition to Bettina Knoetzl, previous long-standing partner and respected head of the “Dispute Resolution” of law firm Wolf Theiss, are Patrizia Netal, former partner and arbitration expert at Platte Rechtsanwaelte, and Florian Haugeneder, former partner and head of the international arbitration practice at Wolf Theiss. Also, Katrin Hanschitz, concentrating on corporate litigation and life sciences, as well as Axel Thoss, a specialist in international civil law disputes, white collar crime and compliance who previously taught as a university assistant for civil law, join them – both experienced litigators for complex commercial disputes. Arbitration law expert Emmanuel Kaufman, with a particular focus on South America, is the sixth partner at KNOETZL.

“We are the right address when a company or a private person is in a crisis or involved in a process in which everything is at stake – all of our lawyers are highly qualified, experienced and specialized. Our aim is to provide and achieve the best for our clients.”

Bettina Knoetzl has almost 25 years of experience in litigation and arbitration of complex commercial disputes and white collar crime. She built and led, for over a decade, a 60-strong dispute resolution practice group. As a lawyer, she has represented clients in many significant, sometimes publicly sensitive disputes and is routinely ranked by national and international rating agencies, such as Chambers, Legal 500, JUVE and the London Business Law Review. She is widely recognized among the world’s finest lawyers in the areas of “Litigation” and “Asset Tracing”, and is currently named as one of the five “most highly regarded individuals” in Europe by Who’s Who Legal. She is also an active leader of the Litigation Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA) and is the President of the Advisory Board of Transparency International, Austria. Patrizia Netal has many years of experience as a party representative in international commercial arbitration and is also director of the Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot, the world’s largest and most distinguished international event in the field of arbitration.

Florian Haugeneder, former head of the arbitration practice at Wolf Theiss, specializes in investment protection and international commercial arbitration. Among other things, he successfully conducted, together with Emmanuel Kaufman, the largest arbitration in company history of the Coca-Cola Company.