Former SCWP Schindhelm Partner Alice Meissner and former Skribe lawyer Bernhard Passin have joined forces to launch Meissner & Passin Attorneys, which will open its doors on January 1, 2021.
According to Meissner & Passin Attorneys, the firm will focus on “arbitration and litigation as well as corporate law. As for the Asian legal market, there will be close cooperation with Nivalion AG, a leading European third party funder.”
"Well-known Chinese corporations [have already been] active in Austria and Germany for several years,” says Alice Meissner. “Besides corporate legal advice, representing Asian clients in arbitration proceedings has, therefore, become significant [and] important. Also, Vienna's reputation in Asia as [a] popular place of arbitration increased significantly.”
Meissner, who is admitted to the bar in Vienna and Munich, has “counseled on numerous arbitration proceedings and advised the China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission, CIETAC, on the establishment of its new sub-commission in Vienna,” according to Meissner & Passin Attorneys. “Long-term clients of Alice Meissner include industrial companies with Chinese roots, such as Aihai Minerals Europe, which just opened a new talc grinding plant in Styria, as well as various Chinese banks, which usually finance the transactions of Asian investors.”
Meissner has a J.D. from the University of Hamburg and a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. Prior to setting up MP Attorneys, she spent a year at the Commercial Court in Hamburg, a year with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, four years with Wolf Theiss, and six years with SCWP Schindhelm.
The firm describes Bernhard Passin as an “experienced litigator with more than ten years of experience.” He has acted as lead counsel in several proceedings before the ECJ and the Austrian Supreme Court.
Passin is a graduate of KF University in Graz. Prior to opening MP Attorneys with Meissner, he spent two years with Binder Groesswang and 11 years with Heinke Skribe — now Skribe Rechtsanwalte.
