Steven Davidson

Practice Areas

Commercial Trials & Litigation | International Arbitration | Judgment Enforcement & Asset Recovery | Professional Liability | Energy Litigation | Financial Services Litigation

Career

Described by clients as a "real international statesman," Steve Davidson handles high-profile arbitrations and complex business litigation across the globe. As a recognized leader in international disputes and judgment enforcement by Global Arbitration Review, Legal 500, and others, including Chambers USA as a Band 1 ranked lawyer in International Arbitration/Judgment Enforcement, Steve serves as lead counsel to Fortune 500 corporations and other large companies abroad in cases involving complicated and sensitive contractual issues and business matters. Clients such as Korea Electric Power Company, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd, BNSF, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, American Airlines, and UBS call on Steve to litigate knotty issues through trial, master difficult facts, and pursue all available avenues to obtain a recovery. His cases typically encompass multiple fora and several potential parties and claims, presenting complex enforcement questions. He has handled numerous bench and jury trials and has argued several appeals to the Second Circuit, DC Circuit, and state supreme courts. For more than a decade, Steve led Steptoe's Commercial Trials and Litigation group and led Steptoe's International Disputes practice from its inception, bringing together the firm's international arbitration, international litigation, and judgment enforcement capabilities into a unified platform, Steve now leads the judgment enforcement pillar, ensuring that the core components he built continue to operate at the highest level. The group has been highly regarded by Legal 500 and Chambers.

In the area of international arbitration, Steve has been successful as lead counsel in a number of commercial and investment treaty cases. In 2020, he was featured prominently in GAR's recognition of Steptoe on its exclusive 100 list: "The modern arbitration practice took root when Steven Davidson in Washington, DC helped Motorola launch multiple claims against Turkish businessman Cem Uzan, his family and companies. That dispute led to successful enforcement proceedings and the second ICSID claim ever filed against Turkey, which the firm settled in the mid-2000s." Steve has also served as an arbitrator in ICC cases.

Steve's success in worldwide enforcement of court judgments and arbitral awards, including provisional and pre-judgment remedies, has been heralded in several prestigious publications. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll described Steve in his New York Times bestselling book Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power as "one of the world’s leading specialists in the art of seizing and liquidating assets on behalf of large, aggrieved companies." In connection with his work on behalf of ExxonMobil against Venezuela, Mr. Coll wrote: "For the Steptoe attorneys the late-December Friday afternoon seizure of $300 million belonging to Hugo Chavez's government was like hitting a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth before a full house at Yankee Stadium."

Steve is also a leader in groundbreaking cases against foreign sovereigns in cases arising under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and has argued cases before the Second and DC Circuits involving novel immunity issues.

Additionally, for more than 25 years, Steve has represented national law firms in defense of legal malpractice and professional negligence issues. Steve has also served as an expert witness in a wide range of attorneys' fees disputes.

Several of Steve's cases have had industry-wide implications and have been closely watched by numerous media sources. Recently, the media has covered Steptoe's long-running judgment recognition case against Venezuela when Steptoe sought to recognize Exxon's renewed ICSID arbitral award against the sovereign.

The firm's Helms Burton litigation has also garnered media attention. Bloomberg covered Steptoe's success for Exxon Mobil Corp. in an article titled "Exxon Demand for Millions Lost in Cuba Survives Court Fight." On April 21, 2021, US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Exxon can move forward with a US lawsuit seeking $280 million from two Cuban companies as compensation for a refinery and other assets seized from the oil giant after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

Steptoe's victory for firm clients Korea Electric Power Company and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Co, Ltd. in litigation against Westinghouse also received attention.

In another noteworthy case, Bloomberg Law, Law360, LevFin Insights, and Reuters covered Steptoe's success for SourceHOV Holdings LLC in a judgment enforcement litigation stemming from the merger that created Exela Technologies after a Delaware vice chancellor refused to dismiss a judgment creditor’s suit seeking traditional and "reverse" corporate veil piercing against Exela and its subsidiaries in order to collect on a nearly $58 million-plus-interest merger stock appraisal award. This was the first case in Delaware in which reverse veil piercing was permitted.