Litigation & Arbitration

The firm has an excellent reputation in the fields of dispute resolution, litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution including representation before Civil and Penal Courts not only in Greece but also in France, Italy, UK and Romania in cooperation with top tier law firms and local practitioners.

The firm is recognized by Legal 500 (Intellectual Property, TMT, Dispute Resolution, White Collar Crime), Chambers (TMT) and Best Lawyers. Our firm has also been recently recognized among the overall Top 20 Law Firms in Greece by “Top Ranked Legal”, which especially recognized our firm in our areas of expertise, including IP (Top ranked ), TMT, Patents, Dispute Resolution and White-Collar Crime. In addition, we have received praise from various other expert publications such as Managing IP, IAM Patent 1000, Media Law International, Patent & Trademark Lawyers Magazine, etc.

Kriton Metaxopoulos’ unique expertise and reputation led once again to his recognition as leading individual by both Chambers Europe and The Legal 500 EMEA in TMT and Dispute Resolution, by WTR 1000 as a leading Trademark Individual as well as by Managing IP, as Individual IP Star for Patent and Trademark. Irini Daroussou is also recognized as a leading expert in IP and TMT, along with our Trademark expert Marilena Nikolaraki and our TMT expert Asterios Syssilas. Kriton Metaxopoulos, Irini Daroussou and Asterios Syssilas are also ranked as leading experts by Best Lawyers.

Members:

Kriton Metaxopoulos, Managing Partner
Asterios Syssilas, Salaried Partner
Achilleas Christodoulou, Senior Associate
Elena Nikolarea, Associate

Representative Cases:

CROSS BORDER CORPORATE – LITIGATION – WHITE COLLAR CRIME
Kriton Metaxopoulos is the lead lawyer for the coordination and legal strategy of a 150 million Euro international corporate litigation matter, involving legal work in Italy, Lebanon, Romania, UK, France and former Soviet Union and Greece.

NAVAL ACCIDENT NORMAN ATLANTIC
Our firm and in particular Kriton Metaxopoulos has been appointed by a large number of passengers and relatives of victims of the NORMAN ATLANTIC shipwreck to represent them in cooperation with a pool of expert Italian lawyers before Greek and Italian Courts and authorities and to file on their behalf penal complaints as well as civil actions/claims for the material and, in particular, moral damages they have suffered as a result of this tragic accident.

Official Norman Atlantic Blog

Kriton Metaxopoulos’ interview at press

CORPORATE LITIGATION – PENAL PROCEEDINGS
We represent a major multinational corporation, founded and headquartered in Germany that designs and manufactures athletic shoes, clothing and accessories in its dispute with their Greek sales representatives.

LIVESTOCK LITIGATION
The firm undertook to defend one of the largest suppliers of livestock in Europe in an action for € 6 million brought by Greek livestock farmers. The dispute ended successfully for our client with a Supreme Court decision.

TRADEMARK DISPUTE
The firm represented the Distilled Beverages Protection Association in America and made it possible to delete a trademark which had been registered in Greece by a third party without permission.

PUBLIC TENDER
Our firm represented a major Italian software company through all litigation procedures related to a public work.

OLYMPIC CATERING ACQUISITION – CROSS BORDER LITIGATION AND ARBITRATION
The firm represented a foreign group (both before the Greek courts and the International Chamber of Commerce [ICC] in arbitration in Geneva) when handling a dispute with the Greek State about the acquisition of a public sector company, which after protracted court and out-of-court proceedings reached settlement with the payment of USD 18.5 million to the firm’s client by a company 100% controlled by the Greek State.

PATENT DISPUTE – NON-BURN TOBACCO PRODUCTS
We represented a multinational cigarette and tobacco company in a patent dispute against another major multinational cigarette and tobacco company. This is believed to be one of the biggest disputes worldwide regarding heat-non-burn tobacco products.

AIRLINE PASSENGER CLAIMS
We represent Ryanair DAC in Greece, providing our services on a regular basis in matters related to aviation law, including cases of individuals / passengers taking legal measures against Ryanair for reasons of flight cancellations, rerouting of flights etc, based on the provisions of European Regulations, International Conventions and national law.

HOTEL INDUSTRY – CORPORATE – LITIGATION
We represent our client, owner of one of the most famous and prestigious luxury Hotels in Greece, in various issues regarding judicial and extrajudicial disputes that the client has with an international Logistics company, regarding logistic, storage and transport contracts, valued close to 3 million Euro.

WHITE COLLAR CRIME – CROSS BORDER DISPUTE RESOLUTION
We have represented in the UK and Lebanon a wealthy Lebanese individual in a multimillion Euro financial settlement negotiations with his Lebanese ex-wife which have reached a successful conclusion.

SOFTWARE COPYRIGHT PROTECTION
Our client, a leading software management producer, is the author and producer, among others, of a software program which is believed to be the most recognized and advanced program worldwide of three-dimensional designs. In 2020, our client instructed us to take immediate action against a Greek manufacturing company of integrated production lines and industrial packaging machinery which seemed to violate our client’ software program.

BOOK PUBLISHING – COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
Our client which is a Greek major publishing house, found out that there were still copies in the market of certain books of these authors, without their consent, and despite the termination of the previous publishing agreements between the authors and one publishing house. We filed an interim measures application by virtue of which we requested the “cease and desist” of any unauthorized sale of the above books. The court accepted our request and we, therefore, conducted three simultaneous raids at publisher’s premises and warehouses as well as at the premises of a bookstore which was closely collaborating with the publisher as a result of which we found out that thousands of the abovementioned books were under the possession of the defendants. The Court with its decision accepted our main injunction application in all its requests and upon instructions of our client, we filed against the defendants a lawsuit under ordinary proceedings requesting, among others, the restitution of our client’s economic and moral damages;

MUSIC PUBLISHING RIGHTS – COLLECTING MANAGEMENT ORGANIZASIONS
We have been instructed by our client, “Musou Music Publishing Ltd”, a Greek music publishing and production company, to represent it in its dispute against the Greek Collecting Society “GRAMMO” which administers the rights of the producers of phonograms.

SOFTWARE PROTECTION
Our client instructed us to act against a major Greek company which activates in the designing and manufacture of defensive weapons and supportive systems, which was found to unlawfully use “cracked” versions of one of our client’s software products. The case had rather sensitive aspects since the operation of the company was controlled and supervised by the Greek State.

FAMILY DISPUTE
Our client is a high net worth individual, very active in the hospitality industry, who has been involved in a long Court dispute with his former wife. The latter has sued our client before the Greek Courts asking for an amount of approx. 4 million Euros which according to her allegations represents her participation to the assets obtained during their marriage (matrimonial assets).

FRENCH MULTINATIONAL PRODUCER OF DIARY PRODUCTS
The first client is one of the biggest French Companies in the field of cheese products worldwide. The second client is a Greek company affiliated with the French. We represent both companies in a dispute against their former distributor in Greece. The distributor filed a lawsuit for about 3,5 million Euros for clientele indemnity and damages. Subsequently, the opponent filled a new, corrected civil action, the hearing took place on October 2019 and the issuance of the decision took place on September 2020, accepting our arguments and dismissing the civil action in total. Neither an appeal nor a new civil action have been filed so far.

LUXURY HOTEL IN GREECE – DISPUTE
We represent our client, owner of one of the most famous and prestigious luxury Hotels in Greece, in various issues regarding judicial and extrajudicial disputes that the client has with an international Logistics company, regarding logistic, storage and transport contracts.

CROSS BORDER WHITE COLLAR CRIME
Kriton Metaxopoulos has for more than 25 years been advising the members of a tycoon Lebanese origin family established in the UK, Lebanon and France which provided catering services around the world, employing around 35.000 people. We also represent the same client in relation to enforcement proceedings against another Lebanese individual of a 25 million USD award/decision of the competent UK Court in favor of the client. This is the continuation of proceedings started many years ago under the co-ordination of Kriton Metaxopoulos (handled by local firms of course) which have also marked twice the UK case law.

(http://www.pcblitigation.com/cases/abela-v-hammond-suddards-edge-2-12-08/ and

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/hammonds-lawyer-accused-of-taking-secret-payments-gshhfl369jb and

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2012-0023.html)

ELECTRICITY “SCANDAL”
Our firm represented the companies ENERGA S.A., ENERGA POWER S.A., KENTOR S.A., HELLAS POWER S.A. in their disputes with banks, service providers, the Greek State, the administrator by law of the electricity market etc the total value of which exceeds today 200.000.000 million euros.

PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL LAW – BANK CHEQUES
A Greek merchant paid the client with a bad cheque and subsequently he was arrested in Lebanon. Our firm represented the client before all the Courts. It is a case with very complicated matters of law (heavily debated in Greek case law) regarding the jurisdiction of a Court for cases of bad cheques. The case included, inter alia, interpretation and application of the private international rules of the Greek Civil Code and of the bilateral treaty between Greece and Lebanon and interpretation of the Penal and Commercial law provisions of the Greek legislation regarding cheques.

ADIDAS DISPUTE WITH GREEK DISTRIBUTOR
Our firm is representing Adidas and its Greek subsidiary in their dispute related in principle to the termination by Adidas of its franchise agreement with their principal local franchisee and the recovery of sums due to Adidas by the local franchisee (23 million Euro).
In addition, a penal complaint for defrauding creditors has been drafted and filed by our firm (as white collar crime experts) against all above persons who were involved in a series of doubtful transactions before but also after the dispute. Following the hearing before the second instance penal court, the defendants were found guilty by the Court. The appellate decision was upheld by the Supreme Court.

SEIZURE OF BANK ACCOUNTS
We have represented our client, a major Danish design company, in the enforcement proceedings in Greece of a favourable Danish court decision against the very well-known Greek mining museum “Vagonetto”. We achieved the seizure of both of the opponents’ bank accounts, after which the opponents filed for a petition for the Court’s provisional order in order to stop the enforcement proceedings. We successfully opposed to this petition.

CONSUMER PROTECTION
Our firm represented a major Chinese electronics and hardware manufacturer, in its dispute with a Greek consumer, who claims that due to an explosion of a cell phone (produced by our client) while driving, he was involved in a serious car accident. Our Firm represented the manufacturer and achieved a very balanced out of court settlement.

INTERNATIONAL TRADEMARK DISPUTE
We represented an important and innovative Greek packaging company, in a dispute against the world leading French packaging company regarding an EU Trademark Application filed by our client and opposed by the foreign company. After some time, we achieved to reach a very satisfactory settlement agreement for our client, which successfully ended the dispute with their competitors.

COLLECTION OF COMMERCIAL DEBTS
We represent Victory Entertainments SA, a Greek company actively involved- among other things- in the licensing of foreign television series that are distributed in the Greek territory, in its dispute with a Greek T.V. channel that has concluded licensing agreements with our client for the licensing of exploitation and broadcast rights of television series but failed to meet its obligations and to pay the agreed Licensed Fee.

PRIVATE INTERNATIONAL FAMILY LAW
Our law firm has conducted on behalf of a Swiss national a thorough and detailed research and comparative study on European Family Law in order to decide on European states with the most favorable family law legislation regarding the rights of unmarried mothers in relation to their children. To be more specific, we evaluated the common traditions and binding legislative documents of the EU as well as other International Conventions and the ECJ caselaw concerning family law issues and practices. Our main focus was on child abduction issues, parental responsibility issues, rights of custody and rights of access/contact of both parents, jurisdiction issues, as well as practical issues, mechanisms and authorities that handle cases of wrongful removal and retention of children.