Marisa Marinelli

Marisa Marinelli is an attorney in the Litigation Section of Holland & Knight's New York office and serves on the firm's Directors Committee. She is also a director of the New York International Arbitration Center.

Ms. Marinelli is an arbitration advocate and trial attorney whose practice focuses on the litigation and arbitration of disputes arising in connection with international commercial contracts and transactions. She represents clients in all phases of the dispute resolution process (drafting and advising on dispute resolution provisions, analysis of claims, pre-dispute settlement negotiations and mediation, arbitration or litigation of claims, post-judgment recovery, and appeals), with a focus on disputes that involve the international sale of goods, particularly in the energy and raw materials sectors; transportation contracts; post-M&A representation and warranty disputes; insurance coverage disputes; and commercial disputes. She also has represented clients in matters concerning marine casualties; environmental claims; sovereign immunity issues; the Oil Pollution Act of 1990; Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA); and shipping-company workouts.

Ms. Marinelli's representative engagements include:

• Obtained a favorable award in an ad hoc arbitration in New York for a major power company concerning the novel issue of whether grid-scale battery energy storage facilities qualify as generation in the modern electric grid and under the terms of an option that was given under a merger agreement
• Represented a Spanish subcontractor against a U.S. general contractor in an International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) dispute arising from the construction of a photovoltaic plant in Chile
• Represented a major oil company in New Jersey state court litigation in connection with complex insurance and indemnity claims involving liability for cleanup at a New Jersey Superfund site
• Represented the foreign sovereign nation of Spain in pursuing its claims against a ship's classification society and in defending the government's response to an oil spill pursuant to its National Contingency Plan following the sinking of the Prestige tanker in the Exclusive Economic Zone of Spain, which caused pollution damages of more than $1 billion; the litigation addressed important issues of federal maritime law and limits on the application of the Civil Liability Convention
• Obtained a favorable award in an ICDR arbitration for the seller in a post-M&A breach of representation and warranty claim that included complex damages and business valuation claims
• Obtained a favorable award in an ICDR arbitration for a Mexican oil company in a dispute involving claims and counterclaims for a breach of a contract for the sale of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), including complex claims for past and future damages
• Obtained a favorable settlement after one day of a trial that was projected to last multiple weeks in a matter involving shareholder and corporate governance disputes
• Obtained a favorable award in an AAA arbitration for an airline client involving claims for breaches of an employment contract asserted by more than 4,000 pilots
• Obtained dismissal of action, vacatur of the Yellowstone injunction that had been granted, and obtained an award of attorneys' fees on behalf of a warehouse/property owner for which a tenant under a long-term lease asserted claims for alleged hidden defects
• Obtained a favorable award, including attorneys' fees, in a Society of Maritime Arbitrators (SMA) arbitration on behalf of the seller of a tanker vessel under an MOA, where purchaser asserted claims for inter alia revocation and recession
• Obtained numerous favorable settlements on behalf of oil companies for claims involving contamination of products transported on tanker vessels or delivered to, stored at, or loaded on board ships or barges from storage tank farms
• After an ICDR arbitration that included strict discovery oversight under ITAR regulations, obtained a settlement of a claim for insurance coverage for the alleged total loss of a satellite
• Obtained a favorable award in an AAA arbitration for an investment banking consultant involving disputes for fees arising under an Independent Contractor Agreement

In addition, Ms. Marinelli's non-litigation practice includes drafting, reviewing, negotiating and advising on commercial agreements and transactions, including letters of credit, international distribution and marketing agreements, energy-related purchase and sale agreements, and transportation agreements. She also provides support to teams doing due diligence in transactions involving these sectors.

In a notable pro bono matter, Ms. Marinelli represented the Committee to Save St. Brigid's, a group of parishioners and preservationists, in an action against the Archdiocese of New York. That action sought to save an historic church built by Irish shipwrights in the 1840s from demolition. With an appeal pending before the New York Court of Appeals, an anonymous "angel" donated more than $20 million to restore the Church. See Frances Robles, "A New Beginning for a Church Where Demolition Once Started," The New York Times, Jan. 27, 2013.

Ms. Marinelli has published articles on pre-arbitration requirements in dispute resolution clauses, appeals of arbitral awards, third-party discovery in arbitration, the neutrality of arbitrators, the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, and CERCLA and the carriage of dangerous goods and hazardous substances. She is currently working on a chapter for a book on maritime arbitration addressing the topic of compelling arbitration.

While at Hofstra University School of Law, she was editor-in-chief of the Law Review.