PRACTICE FOCUS
Ted Semaya has decades of experience helping clients, from individuals to large multinationals, managing complex and international disputes through litigation in federal, state and foreign courts and in international and domestic arbitrations and mediations, in administrative tribunals, and, most importantly, in avoiding such disputes.
Mr. Semaya has broad experience representing and counseling clients in such disputes and proceedings in, among other areas, business (such as fraud and other business wrongs), commercial (such as contract), corporate (such as M&A), securities (such as 10b-5 fraud), maritime (such as charter parties and contracts of affreightment), professional liability (such as accountants, attorneys, and D&O), insurance and reinsurance, tax, and trusts and estates.
Mr. Semaya also assists clients by: advising on and negotiating agreements, including, among many others, international contracts, executive employment non-competition, confidentiality, and termination agreements; in providing legal opinions in transactions and disputes; in managing legal risk in international transactions and multinational group structures and operations; by defending governmental investigations (including international trade sanctions investigations by OFAC); and conducting confidential internal corporate investigations.
Among the many clients that Mr. Semaya has counseled and represented are foreign and U.S. financial institutions, including banks, insurers and reinsurers, and multi-national, foreign, and U.S. business in various fields, including manufacturing, commodities trading, transportation, mining and processing, diamond trading, shipping, digital commerce, distribution, graphic arts, electronic publishing and fashion; technology firms, foreign bankruptcy trustees; and individuals, including high net worth, as beneficiaries, directors and officers, business partners, professionals, and artists.
POINTS OF DISTINCTION
Among many other matters, examples of Mr. Semaya’s more recent work include: the successful defense of a Chinese medical device manufacturer from claims alleging breach of sales and distribution agreements; preventing any subpoenaed discovery directed against a large multinational in multi-party sovereign debt actions in New York, Texas, Delaware, France, England and Switzerland; successfully representing a European sculptor in an action to recover against New York art gallery for fraud; and successfully unwinding a large industrial real estate transaction for buyer/developer through litigation and multi-party negotiations. In other recent and current matters Mr. Semaya has advised and represented: a French Champagne producer as to agreements relating to international distribution, a European bank on documentation and registration of a ship mortgage, trust beneficiaries in fiduciary accounting proceedings, a digital marketing company in a tax matter, and a European reinsurer regarding liability on multiple facultative and treaty coverages.
Mr. Semaya organizes other continuing legal education programs on international and commercial litigation and arbitration for bar association and other groups, and has been a frequent speaker before attorneys admitted in United States and many other country jurisdictions
Mr. Semaya has frequently been invited to participate in and to moderate meetings between foreign judicial delegations and state court judges
Mr. Semaya was an expert advisor for the US Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) Workshop on International Transactions in Tbilisi, Georgia in February 2014.
PUBLICATIONS
- Book Review, Commercial Litigation in New York State Courts, 5th Edition, by Robert L. Haig, New York Business Law Journal, (2022) Volume 26, No. 1
- The Constitutionality and Effectiveness of the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978, 47 George Washington Law Review 787 (1979)
- Electric Utility Regulation Under PURPA, Energy Law Service, Monograph SC (1980)
- Sources of Audit Liability – A Survey of Current Trends, CPA Statement, vol. XXII, No. 2 (1986, Maryland Assoc. of CPAs)
- Sources of Audit Liability – The Search for Solutions, CPA Statement, vol. XXII, No.3 (1986)
- The Proposed Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments, 7 NY Litigator 9 (2001, New York Bar Ass’n)
- Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments In United States Courts, Strategic Directions for International Practice, International Legal Training (annual editions, 2001-2011)
