Commercial Arbitration Experience

Experience as party-appointed arbitrator, sole arbitrator and chair in ad-hoc arbitrations in Europe (Austria, Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland), the United States (New York, Miami) and Asia (Hong Kong, Singapore), involving international banking contracts, international construction contracts, international concession contracts, international franchise contracts, contracts for the international sale of goods, joint-ventures as well as insurance law and company law issues, intellectual property law issues, post-M&A disputes, and gas price review disputes.

Experience as co-arbitrator, sole arbitrator and chair in arbitrations administered under AAA/ICDR Rules, CAM Rules, ICC Rules, LCIA Rules, SIAC Rules, and VIAC Rules involving company law issues, copyright issues, distribution law issues, energy law issues, insurance law issues, price adjustments issues, turn-key contracts, commercial law issues (including sales law issues).

Franco is listed on the AAA/ICDR Roster of Arbitrators, the CIETAC Panel of Arbitrators, the SIAC Panel of Arbitrators and the JAAC Panel of Arbitrators. In 2015, Franco became a Member of the ICSID Panels of Arbitrators and of Conciliators by way of the designation by the Government of Saint Lucia. Recently, in October 2019, the Federal Republic of Germany appointed Franco to the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators as first non-German citizen. In 2016 and then again in 2019, he was appointed as President of the Arbitrator Committee of the Thailand Arbitration Center.

From a geographical point of view, the relationships dealt with were very diverse, as they concerned relationships involving parties from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Colombia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Lebanon, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, the United States and Venezuela.

The goods involved in the sales contract issues ranged from airplanes (disputes over wrongful termination of a long term contracts), crude oil (in a dispute over the quality of the oil delivered) and gas (gas price review disputes; dispute over the compliance with import regulations), to photovoltaic material (disputes relating to the wrongful termination of long term contracts), applied steel (disputes over the existence of a duty to obtain government import authorizations by one party), medical devices (disputes relating, among others, to the infringement of intellectual property rights), and pharmaceuticals (dispute over the quality of the goods delivered), hardware, weapons systems, drilling rigs, as well as the construction and sale of ships.

The claim size dealt with varied; it ranged from 246.000,00 USD (dispute between Turkish seller and Italian buyer) to 590.000.000,00 USD in a dispute between a Chinese manufacturer and a German importer. Recently, Franco was appointed in a dispute between a Chinese producer of photo-voltaic material and a German buyer the value of which was 1.000.000.000,00 USD .