Ivana Cingel

Counsel

Ivana Cingel is a counsel in O’Melveny’s San Francisco office and a member of the International Practice.  Ivana’s practice focuses on international commercial arbitration and litigation and complex civil litigation.

Ivana has been involved in international commercial arbitrations before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the German Institution of Arbitration (DIS), as well as a domestic commercial arbitration before the American Arbitration Association.

Ivana recently helped win a full dismissal for a European bank in an action involving a US$50 million damages claim; helped win a court order on behalf of a global engineering and construction company blocking a South American state from wrongfully drawing down on a letter of credit; helped win a court order on behalf of a global engineering and construction company permanently staying an ICC arbitration on statute-of-limitations grounds; helped advise a high-level Japanese executive concerning extradition from Japan in connection with a DOJ Antitrust Division investigation; and represented a global microprocessor manufacturer in the largest, worldwide monopolization and antitrust action filed in the United States.  Ivana also recently represented, pro bono, a plaintiff in a civil rights action against a school district and helped obtain a precedent-setting settlement and wide-ranging injunctive relief that led to the district adopting best-in-class anti-harassment policies.

Ivana’s substantive areas of experience include pharmaceutical, corporate, antitrust, extradition, international arbitration, and complex procedural matters.  Ivana was previously employed as an associate with an international law firm in New York where she worked on a US Supreme Court case concerning the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the enforceability of judgments of the International Court of Justice in US courts

Illustrative Professional Experience

• Represented a global engineering and construction company in an ICC arbitration initiated by a Brazilian power company seeking over $60 million in damages resulting from the failure of a generator in a power plant designed and built by our client; won a permanent stay of the arbitration from the Southern District of New York on the ground that the power company’s claims were time-barred and thus non-arbitrable.
• Won full dismissal for a European commercial and investment bank in a Washington state court action involving contract and business tort claims and damages claim of more than US$50 million.
• Represented a global engineering and construction company in a dispute with the Republic of Ecuador over a 30-year water concession for a large municipality; won a court order blocking Ecuador from drawing down on a letter of credit that served as a performance bond under the parties’ concession contract. With the blocking order in place, the related mediation and arbitration proceedings promptly settled.
• Represented a US chemical company in ICC arbitration in which its Mexican partner sought indemnification for exposure to criminal and civil antitrust liability in the US and Europe resulting from our client’s sales activities on behalf of parties’ joint venture; won, on an application for summary disposition, a partial award dismissing all but two of the Mexican company’s fifteen claims, including those seeking nearly all its damages. Following the issuance of the partial award, the case promptly settled without any payment from our client.
• Represented Advanced Micro Devices, a global microprocessor manufacturer, in the largest, worldwide monopolization and antitrust action filed in the United States, alleging that Intel has unlawfully maintained a monopoly in the worldwide x86 microprocessor market. The case resulted in a precedent-setting settlement.
• Represented a US pharmaceutical company in pending arbitration in Zurich, Switzerland, under DIS arbitration rules, in which a German company is seeking to terminate a drug development and license agreement between the parties.
• Represented, pro bono, a plaintiff in a civil rights action against a school district who alleged the district discriminated against her on the basis of her ethnicity and faith. The case resulted in a precedent-setting settlement and wide-ranging injunctive relief that led to the district adopting best-in-class anti-harassment policies.

Professional Activities

Law Clerk,  Honorable John T. Noonan Jr., US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Teaching Assistant,  Civil Procedure, Yale Law School
Languages,  Spanish; Bosnian; Croatian; Serbian
Co-author,  “Year in Review — International Commercial Dispute Resolution," The International Lawyer (Summer 2008); “Year in Review — International Commercial Dispute Resolution," The International Lawyer (Summer 2009); “Year in Review — International Commercial Dispute Resolution," The International Lawyer (Summer 2010)