Greg Williams

Practice Areas

Gregory M. Williams is a co-leader of Sidley’s Global Arbitration, Trade and Advocacy practice and a member of the Litigation group. His practice focuses on investor-state arbitration and complex commercial arbitration and litigation. His diverse experience includes serving as lead counsel in high-stakes international disputes involving a wide range of claims cutting across several industries, including energy, aerospace, defense and government contracts, mining, infrastructure, life sciences, technology, crypto, financial services, and more.

Greg’s matters are frequently multifaceted, with parallel or related proceedings in multiple fora. For example, Greg represented a publicly traded clean energy company in a wide-ranging, $1+ billion dispute with an Asian energy company arising from licensing agreements that involved three arbitrations seated in Korea, ICC arbitrations seated in London and Singapore, a books-and-records demand in Delaware Chancery Court, and a securities claim in the Southern District of New York. The parties ultimately settled very favorably, confirming exclusive rights of Greg’s client to its intellectual property world-wide and dismissing all claims against his client with prejudice and without compensation.

Greg similarly represented BAE Systems, the largest European defense contractor, in a dispute with the South Korean government relating to an upgrade of Korea’s fleet of F-16 fighter jets. He obtained summary judgment in a U.S. suit declaring that Korea’s claims impermissibly undermined U.S. national security interests. In so doing, he obtained the first-ever foreign anti-suit injunction against a foreign sovereign in the history of U.S. jurisprudence. Further, he convinced the Fourth Circuit to affirm the district court’s decision, despite an amicus brief by the Executive Branch challenging BAE’s national security arguments. Greg also advised BAE with respect to the parallel Korean suit. The Korean Supreme Court recently affirmed BAE’s victory in that action as well.

Greg currently represents Antrix Corp. Ltd., an Indian state-owned entity that serves as the commercial arm of India's Department of Space, in U.S. Supreme Court proceedings related to the recognition and enforcement of a $1.3 billion arbitral award. The case presents the question of whether a plaintiff must prove minimum contacts before a federal court may assert personal jurisdiction over a foreign state sued under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and raises multiple related issues.