Professor Hilmar Raeschke-Kessler (LLM, FCIArb) practises law as Rechtsanwalt beim Bundesgerichtshof (of which there are only 41 at the Bar of the German Federal Court of Justice).
He has acted as chairman, arbitrator and counsel in numerous international and national arbitrations and has been appointed as Presiding Arbitrator by the PCA. Recent disputes have involved M&A, telecommunications, government contracts (public procurement), foreign investment, international trade, privatisation, joint ventures and construction contracts. He also represents clients in enforcement or annulment proceedings of arbitral awards before the Bundesgerichtshof (German Federal Court of Justice).
Mr Raeschke-Kessler is honorary professor at the University of Cologne, lecturing on International Arbitration. He is fluent in German, English and French and has a good knowledge of Italian.
Since April 2016 Prof. Raeschke-Kessler is a member of the Review Committee DIS Arbitration Rules 1998 and since September 2016 a member of the Review Committee of the German Federal Ministry of Justice on Arbitration Law in the German CCP. He has been a member of the IBA working groups on the 1999 IBA Rules of Evidence in International Arbitration, their 2010 review, and on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration. He is vice president of the German branch of the International Law Association (ILA), board member of the German Arbitration Institution (DIS), a member of the ICC Commission on International Arbitration, an observer for the new Chapters of UNIDROIT Principles on Commercial Contracts and is a member of Panels of Arbitrators (Austria, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia).
Some of his publications in English include i.a. The Arbitrator Nominated by an Insolvency Receiver or Liquidator and Conflicts of Interest; in ASA Bulletin, volume 34, No. 4, 2016, pp. 866; The Neutrality of an Arbitral Institution – Exemplified by the ICC-Court; in: Liber amicorum en l'honneur de William Laurence Craig, 2016, 325-333; Chapter 18, Germany, in The International Arbitration Review, 7th ed., Law Business Research 2014, pp. 258 et seq.; The Arbitrability of Intra-corporate Disputes in a German GmbH, in: The Practice of Arbitration, Essays in Honour of Hans van Houtte, Hart Publishing Ltd. 2012, pp. 195 et seq.; Witness Conferencing in The Leading Arbitrators' Guide to International Arbitration (Newman/Hill, third edition, 2014); and Corruption in Foreign Investment – Contracts and Dispute Settlement between Investors, States, and Agents in The Journal of World Investment & Trade, vol 9, No. 1 (2008).