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Gary Birnberg , Esq., FCIArb

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Gary Birnberg, Esq., FCIArb is an arbitrator, mediator, and dispute system designer concentrating on complex cross-border commercial disputes. He has resolved, in the course of more than fifteen years of practice, over 1,000 mediations and more than 100 arbitrations, representing aggregate amounts in the billions. He chairs the Board of Advisors of The Hague Court of Arbitration for Aviation, sits on the panels of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the Court of Arbitration for Art, and conducts proceedings in English, French, and Portuguese across insurance and reinsurance, aviation and aerospace, capital markets infrastructure, sports, the arts, and intellectual property. Counsel describe him as the mediator who closes cases that “everyone anticipated would never settle” — a reputation built on rapid mastery of technical records, multilingual fluency, and the patience to outlast entrenched positions in coverage, M&A, and infrastructure stalemates. Mr. Birnberg is fluent in English, French and Portuguese, and conversational in Spanish and Italian.

Prior to joining JAMS in 2017, Mr. Birnberg spent two decades as a strategy consultant and operating principal, advising multinationals in aviation, technology and communications, energy, life sciences, sports and entertainment, and maritime on cross-border distribution architectures, joint-venture structures, and turnaround mandates. This commercial background equips him to identify economic and regulatory pressure points driving a dispute. Mr. Birnberg has the keen ability translate between sophisticated parties operating in different legal and commercial cultures and help them find common ground to reach resolution

Mr. Birnberg has served, or continues to serve, on ADR panel appointments with the following institutions, among others:

  • Multiple Brazilian institutional panels, including: CAE Mediation and Arbitration Chamber of European Chambers of Commerce (São Paulo); CAM-CCBC — Center of Arbitration and Mediation, Brazil-Canada Chamber of Commerce (São Paulo); CAMARB — Brazilian Chamber of Business Arbitration; CBMA — Brazilian Center of Mediation and Arbitration (Rio de Janeiro); CIESP/FIESP Center of Industries of the State of São Paulo / Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo; and CMAA Câmara de Mediação e Arbitragem ACIF (Florianópolis).
  • The Hague Court of Arbitration for Aviation (HCAA).
  • Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) — mediation list.
  • Court of Arbitration for Art (CAfA) — arbitration and mediation.
  • CMAP — Mediation and Arbitration Center of Paris — International Mediators list.
  • CPR International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (New York).
  • CPR–CMAP joint panel for complex, high-value, bilingual, international commercial cases.
  • FINRA, approximately 2014–2024 — recognized by FINRA for completing a full decade of panel service.
  • KCAB International — Korean Commercial Arbitration Board International, Panel of International Arbitrators.
  • Russian Arbitration Center at the Russian Institute of Modern Arbitration.
  • Vienna International Arbitral Center (VIAC).

Mr. Birnberg is a citizen of the United States and a permanent resident of Brazil.

Representative Matters

Aviation and Aerospace

  • Appointed and approved as party-chosen arbitrator for a three-member ICC tribunal in a New York-seated, English-language commercial aviation arbitration involving a US$47 million dispute under an engine purchase and support agreement between an international airline and a jet-engine manufacturer. 
  • Served as one of two arbitrators in a confidential mock arbitration involving a long-term aerospace joint venture between major U.S. defense contractors concerning rights, responsibilities, and economic allocation during the wind-down phase of the venture; the arbitrators recommended mediation as the commercially viable path forward.
  • Served as sole mediator, on joint nomination confirmed by the ICC International Centre for ADR, in an English-language avionics and aerosystems mediation involving international commercial aviation counterparties, eight-figure payment obligations, and related U.S. court proceedings. 
  • Served as sole mediator, on referral from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in a bilingual English-Spanish aviation dispute involving helicopter auxiliary-power-unit exchange and overhaul issues, technical conformity findings, parallel state-court proceedings, and interpretation of a prior settlement agreement; the matter settled.
  • Served as sole mediator, on referral from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and under JAMS administration, in a business-jet refurbishment dispute involving interior, mechanical, and avionics issues, FAA repair-station work, airworthiness requirements, and cross-border civil aviation registry considerations.

Business Commercial

  • Served as co-arbitrator on a three-member ICC tribunal in a New York-seated cross-border M&A dispute involving a Japanese trading house’s acquisition of a U.S. medical-device startup, including tiered-acquisition, minority-interest, interim-measures, and evidence issues.
  • Served as sole mediator in a France–Brazil renewable-energy joint-venture wind-down, with the French multinational seeking recovery of invested capital and license-back of a patented modular wind-turbine-tower assembly process from its Brazilian counterparty, conducted in French and Portuguese under simultaneous interpretation.
  • Mediated a complex cross-border commercial dispute between Brazilian and U.S.-Brazilian businesses involving an exclusive Latin American distribution agreement, fraud, warranty, accounting, receivables denominated in reais, dual-jurisdiction enforcement, and family-shareholder dynamics.
  • Served as sole mediator in a Spanish-language succession and governance dispute involving a multi-generational Costa Rican family enterprise with holdings in agriculture, financial services, hospitality, commercial real estate, and investments; designed a multi-phase mediation process and governance framework addressing board structure, management roles, business-unit oversight, and ownership/management separation.
  • Served as sole mediator in an executive-compensation and minority-shareholder dispute involving the U.S. affiliate of a multi-generational Italian project-cargo, freight-forwarding, and vessel-chartering group and its longtime general manager and minority shareholder. The matter, conducted partly in Italian, involved profit-sharing, intercompany cost-allocation, severance, and personal-jurisdiction issues spanning civil and common-law fora across Italy, Texas, and Florida.
  • Served as sole emergency arbitrator under JAMS Rule 2 in a Florida-seated arbitration arising from the seller-financed acquisition of a U.S. maritime services operator, issuing multiple rounds of reasoned emergency relief involving injunctive relief, receivership issues, bankruptcy-related developments, and secured-party rights.
  • Served as wing arbitrator on a three-member ad hoc tribunal in a French-language U.S.–Haiti cross-border family-succession arbitration involving Haitian Civil Code issues, Florida-law remedies, real-property assets, and cross-border enforcement considerations.
  • Served as sole mediator and facilitator for a Brazil-subsidiary transition involving a U.S. multinational, designing and conducting a multi-day executive-level process addressing governance, counsel coordination, client-continuity protocols, decision rights, and transition planning.
  • Served as sole mediator in a confidential Miami-administered settlement-enforcement mediation involving a British Virgin Islands holding company, a Spanish-resident Latin American principal, and a Miami broker-dealer principal. The matter involved layered contractual arrangements, cross-border enforcement and collectability issues, and language-access considerations.
  • Mediated a cross-border commercial-fraud and promissory-note dispute involving a major non-alcoholic beverage manufacturer in the English-speaking Caribbean, alleged misrepresentations concerning access to U.S. retail and government relationships, and fraud and contract remedies under a disputed distribution-agreement framework.
     

Entertainment

  • Served as sole arbitrator in coordinated JAMS consumer proceedings involving a creator-economy membership platform, content-moderation and deplatforming issues, amendments to platform terms of use, summary-disposition authority under the JAMS Consumer Minimum Standards, and Communications Decency Act defenses.

Financial Markets

  • Co-mediated to settlement, a Portuguese-language dispute arising from a Brazilian competition-authority mandate concerning access to post-trade equities market infrastructure. The matter had been pending for more than two years in parallel arbitration and resolved through a signed access contract with volume-based pricing, involving a market valued at approximately US$1 trillion.
  • Served as panelist on a three-arbitrator FINRA panel in a multi-claimant customer arbitration involving approximately 135 Ecuadorean and Andean Latin American investors, alleged losses of approximately US$38 million, private-placement and structured-product fraud claims, clearing-firm liability issues, and a record substantially in Spanish.
  • Served as sole arbitrator in an expedited private-placement securities-fraud arbitration involving federal and Florida securities-law claims, including rescission and damages issues.
  • Served as mediator in a US$100+ million U.S. initial public offering of a foreign telecommunications company, addressing conflict among the global investment banker and the in-house and external legal teams. Designed an internal dispute-resolution system that secured continuation of the IPO.
  • Served as chair, sole arbitrator, party-appointed arbitrator, or mediator across a decade of FINRA panel service (approximately 2014–2024, recognized by FINRA for completing a full decade) and continuing JAMS panel service before, during, and after, in dozens of broker-dealer customer matters spanning suitability, derivatives mis-selling, churning, selling-away, breach-of-fiduciary-duty, and Section 10(b) and 12(a)(2) federal-securities-fraud claims.

Insurance and Reinsurance

  • Served as sole mediator in a bilingual Portuguese-English insurance coverage dispute arising from the Brumadinho tailings-dam collapse in Brazil, involving US$200 million in aggregate policy limits across a two-layer insurance and reinsurance program; the matter settled. Mediated to settlement a US$600 million limit-of-liability coverage claim arising from a US$7 billion underlying loss in a Brazilian mining-sector catastrophe, in a single-mediator process with fifty-six participants conducted under the rules of a leading international institution over the course of a week.
  • Served as sole mediator in a marine-insurance broker-fraud claim arising from the procurement of dual hull-and-machinery and P&I policies on a commercial vessel, with disputed disclosure, agency-scope, and rescission defenses driving the settlement architecture.

Intellectual Property

  • Served as sole mediator, appointed in U.S. federal litigation, in a confidential cross-border intellectual property dispute involving research materials for a proposed catalogue raisonné of a major 20th-century artist, U.S. and French copyright and trade-secret issues, correspondence-secrecy law, non-monetary relief, and cross-jurisdictional treatment of archival materials; the matter settled through a mediator’s proposal.
  • Mediated to settlement a design-patent and Lanham Act unfair-competition dispute between a consumer-products patentee and a Fortune 500 diversified manufacturer involving successor liability for pre-acquisition sales of the accused product, damages apportionment across pre- and post-acquisition periods, and design-patent licensing-settlement issues.
  • Mediated a multi-jurisdictional sublicensing dispute involving a Netherlands rights-holder, the Austrian originators of a patented coaxial-to-fiber conversion system, and U.S. sublicensees. The dispute involved alleged circumvention of royalty and reporting covenants, direct dealings with foreign patentees, overlapping European licensor relationships, and U.S. contract claims.

Sports

  • Served as sole arbitrator under JAMS Comprehensive Rules in a Miami-seated, Florida-law arbitration involving a closely held streaming-fitness media venture, minority-member rights, consulting-agreement termination, equity clawback issues, contractual revenue definitions, and fees-and-costs issues.

Gary Birnberg

Gary Birnberg, Esq., FCIArb | JAMS Mediator & Arbitrator

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Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

Professional Recognition

  • Recognized as a Best Lawyers “Best Lawyer in America” in Arbitration and Mediation, 2022–2026
  • Listed as Excellent Mediator, Dispute Resolution Category, Leaders League Brazil, 2021–2026

Leadership & Membership

  • Mediation Panel Member, Dubai International Financial Centre (2026)
  • Certified Mediator, International Mediation Institute (IMI) 2023-2026
  • Distinguished Fellow, International Academy of Mediators, 2021–2026
  • Fellow, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK), 2017–2026
  • Chair, Board of Advisors, The Hague Court of Arbitration for Aviation, 2022–2026
  • Member, Board of Directors, JAMS Foundation, 2020–2026
  • International Bar Association
    • Mediation Committee: Co-Chair, 2019–2020; Advisory Board Chair, 2021; Advisory Board Member, 2022–2026
  • Advisory Council, The Mediation Hub Mena (Dubai), 2024–2026
  • Observer, Advising Committee, U.N. Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation, 2022–2023.
  • Member, Steering Committee, Divided Community Project, Ohio State University Moritz School of Law, 2025–2026
  • Member, Board of Advisors, Câmara Especial de Resolução de Conflitos em Reestruturação de Empresas (CamCMR), the ADR chamber of the Centro de Mulheres na Reestruturação Empresarial (CMR — Center for Women in Business Restructuring), 2022-2026
  • Member, Rules Committee, ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition, 2021–2026
  • Member, Executive Council, International Law Section, Florida Bar, 2022–2025
  • Chair, Arbitration/Mediation Committee, International Law Section, Florida Bar, 2022–2024
  • Chair, Mediation Committee, International Law Section, Florida Bar, 2020–2022
  • President, French-American Chamber of Commerce of Florida, 2018–2020
  • Chair, Florida Chapter, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIArb) North America Branch, 2019–2020
  • Member, CBAR — Brazilian Arbitration Committee, 2019-2026
  • Operating Committee, Maxwell Challenge, Singapore, 2025–2026
  • Operating Committee, CDRC Vienna, 2018–2021
  • Judge and Mediator, ICC International Mediation Competition, 2016–2025
  • Florida Supreme Court Civil Mediator Certification, 2010, and Appellate Mediator Certification, 2012

Bar Admissions

  • New York (inactive)
  • District of Columbia (inactive)
  • Massachusetts (inactive)
  • Minnesota (inactive) 

Selected Speaking Engagements & Publications

  • Panelist — “From Hearing Room to Settlement Table: Navigating the Transition between Arbitration and Mediation”, CDRCxFreshfields Panel, 11th IBA-VIAC CDRC Vienna Mediation and Negotiation Competition, Vienna, 6 July 2026.
  • Panelist, “Innovation in Conflict-Resolution Methods and Systems Design: New Tools, Methodologies, and Practices for Greater Economy and Efficiency in the Business Environment,” IV CR Connection Mission — LATAM, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Buenos Aires, June 2026
  • Panelist, “Assisting his/her Client AND Being Useful in the Mediation Process,” Union Internationale des Avocats UIAcademy / DPRLab, May 2026
  • Panelist, “International Trends and Local Developments,” Mediation Summit 2026, Dubai, January 2026
  • Moderator, “2 Worlds Arbitration Conference,” New York, November 2025
  • Panelist, “Technical–Strategic Negotiation: Local and Global Business Solutions,” 1st CCAMI International Congress, São Paulo, October 2025
  • Speaker, “Commercial Mediation in Cross-Border Disputes,” 7th Shanghai–Hong Kong Commercial Mediation Forum, Shanghai, September 2025.
  • Panelist, “Commercial Mediation and Arbitration,” Law Faculty of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, August 2025.
  • Speaker, “Mediation Beyond Borders: Resolving Cross-Border Disputes in a Globalized World,” Mediation & Law IX International Forum, Kyiv (virtual), June 2025
  • Rapporteur, 2nd Brazilian Mediation Day: Global Edition, Pantheon-Assas, Paris, February 2025
  • Instructor, Master Class in Cross-Cultural Mediation, CCAMI Course for Mediator Training, online, October 2024
  • Panel Moderator, “Clearing for Takeoff: Exploring Arbitration’s Path in Airport Concessions,” XI CAM-CCBC Arbitration Congress and 17th IFCAI Biennial Conference, São Paulo, October 2024
  • Speaker, “Dispute Resolution: Mediation, Arbitration, Litigation,” 14th Annual McGill Conference on International Aviation Liability, Insurance and Finance, Montreal, September 2024
  • Panel Coordinator and Moderator, “Mediation in the Air,” IBA Annual Meeting, Mexico, September 2024
  • Contributing Editor, The Guide to Aviation and Space Disputes, Global Arbitration Review (GAR), June 2024, and Second Edition, May 2026
  • Speaker, “The Use of ADR in Aviation,” Member Airline Legal Briefing Sessions, IATA World Legal Symposium, Vancouver, February 2024
  • Panelist, “Mediation in Aviation,” Hague Court of Arbitration for Aviation Annual Conference, The Hague, January 2024
  • Speaker, “Duty of Disclosure under Comparative Law,” English Arbitration Day, São Paulo Arbitration Week, October 2023
  • Panel Moderator, “Greener Grass or Scorched Earth: The Impact of Legislation and Court Reform on Arbitration Friendliness in the Americas,” Miami Arbitration Week, November 2023
  • Guest Speaker, “Conflicts and their Resolutions: A Global Adventure Through Time,” Honors Social Science Methods/Theory Course, University of Texas, October 2021
  • Panelist, International Perspectives on Commercial Mediation, ILS Virtual Panel Series Novos Rumos da Mediação Comercial Internacional, August 2021
  • Moderator, IBA Annual Conference, “Mediation of International Commercial Disputes: Pitfalls, Risks and Opportunities,” November 2020.
  • Panelist, “The Implication of the Recently Signed Singapore Mediation Convention for Australian Practitioners,” ILS International Law and Practice Course, Sydney, August 2019
  • Moderator, “Resolving Art Disputes: Solutions for Stakeholders,” Panel Discussion during Art Basel Miami Beach, 2018
  • Panelist, Opening Panel, “The Use of Mediation within Arbitration,” CAMARB VIII Brazilian Competition in Business Arbitration and Mediation, 2018
  • Panelist, “The Value-Added of Mediation,” GEMEP / CBAR 11 International Congress on Business Mediation, 2018

Additional or Unique Skills

Languages

English Portuguese French Spanish Italian

Background and Education

Professional History

  • Worked, as a business consultant, on the financial restructuring of businesses involving major global banks, and on corporate financing projects for companies specializing in decentralized molecular diagnostics, real-time monitoring of patients’ metabolic state, and fertility detection.
  • Worked, as a business consultant, on several projects with major hospital systems involving the recovery of erroneously rejected federal-program and private-insurance claims.

Education

  • M.B.A., INSEAD, 1986
  • J.D., Boston University School of Law, 1985
  • B.A., International Relations, University of Pennsylvania, 1981

Virtual & In-Person Locations

Home Offices

  • New York, NY
  • Miami, FL

Available to Travel To

  • Boston, MA
  • Chicago, IL
  • Houston, TX
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Seattle, WA
  • Washington, DC

Virtual hearings available nationwide

News & Insights

Events

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