Dr. Nikolaus Pitkowitz, FCIArb is founding partner and head of dispute resolution at Graf & Pitkowitz, Vienna. He holds law degrees from University of Vienna (JD and PhD) and University of Sankt Gallen, Switzerland (MBL) and is also qualified and certified as a Mediator. Dr. Pitkowitz has been practising law since 1985. He co-founded Graf & Pitkowitz in 1995 which has since then developed into one of the leading Austrian law firms comprising seven partners and over 40 fee-earners. His practice has always been pre-dominantly international with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and developed from transactional work in the fields of Real Estate and M&A to interna-tional dispute resolution where he acted as party counsel and arbitrator in over 100 international disputes, dealing with a variety of matters in a range from smaller to multibillion cases. Nikolaus Pitkowitz is Vice-President of the Vienna International Arbitral Centre (VIAC), and arbitrator and panel member of all leading arbitration institutions and Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (FCIArb). He also acts as Vice-chair of the International Arbitration Committee of the Section of International Law of the American Bar Association and as member of the ICCA/Queen Mary University Task Force on Third Party Funding in Arbitration. Nikolaus Pitkowitz frequently speaks at seminars and is author of numerous publications on international dispute resolution and real estate as well as CEE related themes. He has been con-stantly ranked among the top Austrian litigation and CEE practitioners.