Announcement of Vanguard launch in Global Arbitration Review
The launch of Vanguard International Dispute Resolution was reported in the Global Arbitration Review on 8 January 2025:
"Melanie van Leeuwen and Sophia von Dewall have left the partnership at Derains & Gharavi to launch a new Paris boutique.
Vanguard International Dispute Resolution opened on 1 January. Two other former Derains & Gharavi lawyers, Stijn Wilbers and Elena Mitu, are joining the new firm as associates.
Van Leeuwen and von Dewall will practise as counsel and arbitrator at Vanguard. They plan to grow the firm to around 20 lawyers by the end of 2026.
Van Leeuwen joined Derains & Gharavi as partner in 2011 from Loyens & Loeff, having previously worked at Freshfields and Dutch firm Stibbe.
Her counsel experience includes helping India to persuade a Dutch court to annul a US$1.2 billion award won by the UK’s Cairn Energy, although the parties had separately reached a settlement. She also leads the counsel team defending India in a US$640 million treaty claim lodged by investors in insolvent satellite company Devas Multimedia.
As arbitrator, she is chairing a €1.2 billion treaty claim brought by a Slovenian mining investor against North Macedonia. She also recently sat on an ICSID tribunal that ordered the Gambia to compensate investors for the expropriation of their tiger-prawn farming business; and an annulment committee that upheld an award requiring Madagascar to pay €7 million to two Belgian brothers whose clothes factory was looted and burned down.
In July, van Leeuwen was reappointed as chair of the ICC commission on arbitration and ADR. ICC Court president Claudia Salomon tells GAR: ‘Melanie has a stellar reputation as a sought-after and world-renowned counsel and arbitrator.’
Salomon also praises her leadership skills as chair of the ICC commission. ‘I have no doubt Vanguard IDR will thrive.’
Van Leeuwen speaks English, French, Dutch and German and is admitted to the Paris and Amsterdam bars.
Von Dewall, who is also dual-qualified in Paris and Amsterdam, joined Derains & Gharavi as an associate in 2012 after seven years at Freshfields. She began her career practising corporate law before switching to dispute resolution and worked in the New York, London and Amsterdam offices.
She was promoted to counsel at Derains & Gharavi in 2017 and made partner in 2022.
At Derains & Gharavi, Von Dewall was part of the teams led by founding partner Hamid Gharavi that secured wins for Albania in ICSID cases brought by Greek fuel distributor Mamidoil and scratch card investors Burimi and Eagle Games. She was also part of Gharavi-led teams representing Romania in several pending ICSID renewable energy cases, and helped the state defeated a long-running case over its alleged persecution against the family of an insurance and media tycoon.
Together with van Leeuwen, von Dewall has represented a leading construction contractor in an ICC arbitration over a power plant. She also acted for a major Dutch bank in a post-M&A dispute under the rules of Belgian arbitration institute CEPANI.
Van Leeuwen and von Dewall have also acted in several arbitrations for European media network RTL. Marjolein van der Linden, COO of RTL, says she can ‘confidently say they are nothing short of a dream team.’
‘Their approach is incredibly thorough and strategic, always striking the perfect balance between focusing on the legal merits and considering the commercial interests involved. They consistently demonstrate an impressive ability to navigate complex situations while remaining a pleasure to work with.’
Brussels-based arbitrator Albert Jan van den Berg, who worked with both van Leeuwen and von Dewall at Freshfields, says of the pair: ‘Their superb legal skills, mastery of case files and strategic insight make for an unbeatable combination. Their written and oral advocacy is among the best I have seen in the business: clear, sophisticated and persuasive.’
‘They have become arbitration lawyers of the highest calibre, and I have every confidence that they will make Vanguard a major success.’
Hamid Gharavi tells GAR: ‘We thank our three Dutch colleagues Melanie Van Leeuwen, Sophia Von Dewall and Stijn Wilbers for their contributions and wish them a bright future in setting up their own shop’."
