William M. Barron

William M. Barron is a partner in the International Law and Litigation Departments of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP, and Leader of International Litigation in the New York Office.

Mr. Barron concentrates his practice in the areas of business and commercial law, litigation, antitrust, art law and the law of artifacts. He was formerly litigation leader at the New York law firm of Walter, Conston, Alexander and Green, P.C.; from 1987 to 1991, he was vice president, general counsel and secretary of Bayer USA Inc. He continues to act as general counsel for foreign companies with subsidiaries in the United States.

He is author of “Litigation and Arbitration in the U.S.A.,” Prozessfuehrung und Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit in den USA, published by the German American Chamber of Commerce, New York, and Bonn, Germany, 1986 and 2009 (Second Edition).

Mr. Barron is a member of the American Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Institute of International Commercial Law (since 1991). Mr. Barron is a member of the German American Chamber of Commerce in New York and of the Board of Directors of the U.S.-Austrian Chamber of Commerce. He is also a member of the Art Law Committee of the Bar Association of the City of New York, and the Archeological Institute of America. He is listed in Super Lawyers magazine.

Mr. Barron received his J.D. from Cornell Law School in 1970, where he was a member of the Cornell Journal of International Law and Vice Chancellor of the Moot Court Board. He received his B.A. from Yale University in 1967, where he was a Blair Scholar.

Mr. Barron is admitted to practice in, inter alia, the State of New York as well as the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, various Courts of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. He is responsible for cases throughout North America, including New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Georgia, California, Oregon and Canada. He is fluent in German.

Representative Experiences
Corporate Litigation

Successful representation of MAN AG as plaintiff in an international fraud case, which was presented to a jury over the course of five weeks and led to the largest civil judgment in the United States in 2006.

Mr. Barron has over 37 years of experience in international corporate litigation and commercial disputes, including cases concerning employment disputes, trademark and trade secret issues, distributorships, franchise law, sales of goods, bankruptcy disputes, and mergers and acquisitions etc.

Art Law

Mr. Barron’s international litigation has included many cases relating to art and artifacts, and the following are representative matters:

• Representing the heirs of Max Liebermann in the successful recovery of a painting of his granddaughter that was taken from Liebermann’s widow by the SS in Berlin in 1943.
• Representing a foreign sovereign in a dispute in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles concerning title to a painting.
• Litigating and settling a de Kooning title dispute by a mutually satisfactory sale of the painting to a European collector.
• Representing a European museum in a civil forfeiture case in the U.S. District Court of New York, defending against the forfeiture of a painting our client loaned to a New York museum for exhibition.
• Representing the oldest auction house in the world in various claims in California and New York.
• Litigation in Europe and the United States involving a Picasso false signature.
• Advising numerous European and American museums, galleries, dealers, and collectors in art law matters, as well as representing and advising sovereign nations and their agencies and instrumentalities on various art related issues.
• Representing and advising different German, Austrian and other European clients in numerous actions in the United States concerning claims arising out of World War II.