Biography
Juan Felipe Merizalde is a civil and common law lawyer with more than 16 years of experience in international arbitration. His practice focuses on international commercial and investment arbitration, particularly disputes involving Latin American parties. He has considerable experience as counsel and arbitrator in over 80 cases, representing States, State-owned entities and private parties before the most renowned institutions.
He has acted in arbitrations under all of the major arbitral rules and institutions such as the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR), and the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), securing many landmark victories for his clients.
His recent victories include representing Guatemala in the IC Power and Iberdrola cases, where all claims were dismissed, as well as his home country, Colombia, in an ICSID case initiated by America Movil, dismissing claims exceeding US$ 1 billion. He also successfully represented a Swiss pharmaceutical company in an ICDR arbitration against his distributor in 2 Latin American countries.
He currently acts as counsel and arbitrator in commercial and investment cases. His recent work includes acting as lead counsel in 2 ICC cases in the energy sector, defending a Latin American State in an ICSID arbitration, and advising an investor in a potential investment case against a Latin American country.
Before founding Adell & Merizalde, Juan Felipe worked for 12 years at Dechert LLP in its Paris and Washington D.C. offices. At Dechert, he gained vast experience with one of the most renowned international arbitration practices in the world.
Juan Felipe is consistently recognized by Who’s Who Legal, Global Arbitration Review, The Legal 500, Chambers Latin America, Leaders League and Latin Lawyer.