Sabrine Schnyder

SABRINE SCHNYDER focuses her practice on international commercial arbitration and complex cross-border contractual disputes before major arbitral institutions, including the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution and the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce (SCC). Her other areas of practice include Swiss privacy law, including issues of judicial assistance for foreign proceedings; Swiss private law and private international law, including issues of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments and Swiss contract law as well as Swiss sanctions and export controls.

Sabrine’s recent experience in international arbitration involves the following cases:

• Acting as secretary to the sole arbitrator in a Swiss Rules arbitration in a dispute between a global life sciences company and its Middle-Eastern distributor concerning the distribution of a complex and high-value medical robot. 
• Acting for two affiliates of a global leader in the semiconductor market in an ICC arbitration seated in Paris under Belgian law concerning a joint research and development project. The dispute concerns the ownership of and utilization rights for important patents used in modern mobile device applications, and parallel patent infringement litigation in several countries.
• Acting for a Eastern Europe company active in the steel industry in a Swiss Rules arbitration with seat in Zürich. The dispute is governed by Swiss, Serbian and Slovak law and concerned a multitude of contracts on the delivery of raw materials and end-products as well as the privatization of a steel mill.
• Defending a Swiss company in an ICC arbitration with seat in Paris against claims that arose on a service agreement regarding the analysis and testing of grains. The dispute was governed by Swiss law.
• Obtaining a US$71 million ICC award for an affiliate of a leading CIS metals company. The award represented a third straight victory in a long-running battle relating to a series of important supply contracts.
• Obtaining a US$275 million award for a CIS aluminium company and successfully defending against over US$800 million in counterclaims in an arbitration filed in Zürich under the Swiss Rules against an important State-owned entity in Central Asia in a case involving complex issues of Swiss, English, BVI and Russian law.
• Obtaining a large award for an African minerals trading company in an ICC arbitration in Geneva against a multinational company involving termination of an off-take agreement against the backdrop of the UN sanctions regime. The award was upheld in setting-aside proceedings before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court.

Sabrine also advises clients on data protection matters, including:

• Assisting a global pharma company with a global data protection project including implementation of Binding Corporate Rules, dealing with cross-border data transfer issues and assisting with data protection filings.
• Assisting a Swiss-based company offering carpooling services in restructuring their internal organization in a way that is compliant with Swiss data protection law and GDPR. The assignment included the drafting of a privacy policy and internal guidelines, software licensing agreements and terms of use.

Sabrine holds law degrees from the University of Lucerne and the University of Geneva and received one of the top three scores in the 2014 Geneva bar exam. She recently completed a training as Data Protection Officer. Sabrine regularly publishes, speaks at and/or organizes conferences on issues of international arbitration and privacy law. Prior to joining Sidley, Sabrine worked in several other major law firms where she gained experience in international arbitration. She is fluent in English, German and French.

Sabrine has nine year of experience in the field and she is fluent in English, German and French.