Add a bookmark to get started

Marc Jacob

Dr Marc Jacob LL.M.

Partner
Excellent advocate with outstanding skills… excellent strategist.
Who's Who Legal 2024
About

Marc is an advocate and adviser in our leading international disputes practice. He has deep experience in high-value investment treaty and commercial arbitration, as well as in cross-border litigation. He regularly represents companies and sovereign states worldwide. He has handled cases under virtually all the major arbitral rules. Marc also sits as an arbitrator.

Dually qualified in England and Germany, Marc often acts at the intersection of different jurisdictions, legal traditions, and cultural backgrounds. He recently coordinated multiple investor-state arbitrations spanning several countries. He also advises on and argues international law issues.

Professional QualificationsBarrister in England and WalesRechtsanwalt admitted with Rechtsanwaltskammer Frankfurt am Main

EXPERIENCE

  • Representing a globally active investor in several BIT arbitrations concerning industrial plants in CEE and North Africa.
  • Representing Ukraine in SCC arbitration under the Ukraine-Russia BIT against the Russian state development corporation.
  • Advising a European bank and a major European industrial company regarding investment treaty protection, sanctions and procedural recourse against a CIS state.
  • Acting for China in BIT / ICSID arbitration against a European investor.
  • Representing Lithuania in BIT / ICSID arbitration brought by a multinational group in relation to heat and power generation systems in Lithuania.
  • Acting for a global leader in pharmaceuticals against a European biotech company in German court proceedings.
  • Acting for a European healthcare company in German law DIS arbitration brought by a European chemicals company under an SPA.
  • Representing Croatia in ICSID arbitration under the Croatia-Austria BIT in relation to real property in Croatia.
  • Acting for a US biotech company in ICC arbitration in France against a German company in the global pharmaceutical market.
Languages
  • German
  • English
  • French
  • Spanish
Education
  • University of Frankfurt am Main, doctorate in law, summa cum laude
  • Harvard Law School, LL.M., Landon H. Gammon Fellowship for academic excellence
  • University College London, LL.B., first class honours

    University of Heidelberg

Awards and Recognitions

  • Legal 500 Germany 2024: Recommended for trade and distribution: foreign trade law (including sanction law) as well as dispute resolution: arbitration (including international arbitration) and commercial litigation
  • Handelsblatt in cooperation with Best Lawyers 2024/2025: Recommended for litigation, international arbitration as well as arbitration and mediation
  • Who's Who Legal 2024 – Arbitration Future Leaders – Partners: "He is an excellent advocate with outstanding skills"; "He is an excellent strategist and has great knowledge of public international law"; “Marc is diligent, attentive and responsive"; “Marc is a legal encylopedia and can navigate with ease through the thorniest technical issues"
  • Who's Who Legal 2023 – Arbitration Future Leaders – Partners: "Marc is top-notch in the field"; "He can decipher the most complex legal issues and he is extremely comfortable with disputes involving complex legal issues"; “He knows how to handle disputes at the interface between common law and German civil law"
  • Legal 500 The Arbitration Powerlist: DACH 2023: Listed among "leading arbitration counsel in Germany, Austria and Switzerland" and "practitioners that are deemed the gold standard by businesses"
  • Legal 500 Germany 2023: Recommended for dispute resolution: arbitration (including international arbitration) 
  • GAR Global Arbitration Review 2022: "brilliant advocate and terrific colleague”; “He combines significant experience in international commercial and investment arbitration with an uncommon strategic sense"; “super impressive and persuasive practitioner who... masters not only his own systems of English and German law, but also has an outstanding grasp of the rules and processes of international law”
  • Legal Media Group's Expert Guides 2015-2019: Noted as a rising star in Commercial Arbitration (Germany)

Publications

  • “When can a state-linked entity bring an investment treaty claim?“, 1 June 2022
  • “Art. 268 TFEU: Jurisdiction in Disputes Relating to Compensation” in Das Recht der Europäischen Union (Grabitz/Hilf/Nettesheim eds., C.H. Beck, 2021) (with M. Kottmann)
  • “Art. 340 TFEU: Action for Damages” in Das Recht der Europäischen Union (Grabitz/Hilf/Nettesheim eds., C.H. Beck, 2021) (with M. Kottmann)
  • “Dispute Settlement Mechanism under the London Agreement on German External Debts (1953)” in Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (H. Ruiz Fabri ed., Oxford University Press, 2019)
  • “Counterclaims and State Claims” in Contemporary and Emerging Issues on the Law of Damages and Valuation in International Investment Arbitration 347 (C. Beharry ed., Brill Nijhoff, 2018) (with J. Sharpe)
  • “Fair and Equitable Treatment: Content, Practice, Method” in International Investment Law 700 (M. Bungenberg et al. eds., C.H. Beck, Hart, Nomos, 2015) (with S. Schill)
  • “Going Soft: Towards a New Age of Soft Law in International Investment Law?” 8(1) World Arbitration & Mediation Review 1 (2014) (with S. Schill)
  • Precedent and Case-Based Reasoning in the European Court of Justice: Unfinished Business (Cambridge University Press, 2014; paperback, 2016)
  • “Technique and Contents of International Investment Treaties: Can the Form Affect the Substance?” in Preferential Trade and Investment Agreements: From Recalibration to Reintegration 81 (R. Hofmann et al. eds. Nomos, 2013)
  • “Common Structures of Investment Law in an Age of Increasingly Complex Treaty-Making” Columbia FDI Perspectives 94, May 2013 (with S. Schill)
  • “Trends in International Investment Agreements, 2010/2011: The Increasing Complexity of International Investment Law” in Yearbook on International Investment Law & Policy 141 (K. Sauvant ed., Oxford University Press, 2013) (with S. Schill)
  • “Investments, Bilateral Treaties” in Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law 317 (R. Wolfrum ed., Oxford University Press, 2012)

Seminars

Marc Jacob is a regular speaker on issues of dispute resolution, arbitration and public international law.

Prior Experience

  • Before joining DLA Piper, Marc Jacob worked in an international law firm in Frankfurt. He was formerly a senior fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg.

Lecturer

  • Since 2012, Marc Jacob has taught investment arbitration and international law at the University of Tübingen.

Memberships And Affiliations

  • ICC Commission on Arbitration and ADR, ICC Germany
  • London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA)
  • The German Institution of Arbitration (DIS)
  • Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA) 
  • German Branch (DVIR) of the International Law Association (ILA)
  • The British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL)
  • The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple
  • International Bar Association (IBA)
  • Harvard Club Rhein-Main

Connect