Michael E. Schneider is a founding partner of LALIVE. He has practised in international arbitration for more than 35 years as counsel in ad hoc proceedings and under various rules, including those of the ICC, ICSID, Swiss Rules, Stockholm Institute, the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA), European Development Fund, UNCITRAL, and before other international bodies, including the WTO Appellate Body and the United Nations Compensation Commission. He has also acted as arbitrator (chair, sole or co-arbitrator) under the rules of many institutions both in Switzerland and abroad.

Michael E. Schneider’s main areas of practice are disputes involving States and private parties in energy and natural resources (in particular oil and gas), construction, industrial engineering and infrastructure projects, power generation, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications and various other industries. He has specific experience in managing large and complex disputes, organizing and leading teams of specialists from different fields and different legal and cultural backgrounds.

Michael E. Schneider is the immediate past president of the Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA). He was vice chair of the ICC Commission on Arbitration until 2013 and a member of several of its working groups (1998 and 2012 revisions of the ICC rules, constructions, pre-arbitral referee). He chaired the UNCITRAL Working Group II (Arbitration) at its Sessions in New York and Vienna (2006- 2010) on the revision of the Arbitration Rules and again since 2014 on the revision of the Notes on Organizing Arbitral Proceedings. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cairo Regional Centre for International Commercial Arbitration (CRCICA) and President elect of the International Academy of Construction Lawyers (IACL).

The academic assignments of Michael E. Schneider include Director of Studies at the Centre for Studies and Research at the Hague Academy of International Law (Transnational Arbitration and State Contracts) and lecturer at the LLM Programme of the University of Fribourg. Mr Schneider studied law and history at the universities of Munich, Bonn and Geneva and at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and was a former AIESEC trainee with the Shell Company in Sierra Leone.