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Tobias Zuberbühler

Tobias Zuberbühler has over 25 years of experience in dispute resolution and has acted as arbitrator and counsel in more than 100 international and domestic arbitration proceedings under various rules (ICC, Swiss Rules, DIS, CEPANI, VIAC, HKIAC). He has also rendered over 400 UDRP decisions as WIPO Domain Name Panelist.

Tobias is a former member of the Arbitration Court of the Swiss Arbitration Centre, co-editor of the Commentary on the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration (3rd ed 2023) and co-author of a leading commentary on the IBA Rules of Evidence. He is recognized as one of the leading international arbitrators (Chambers Global, Who’s Who Legal Thought Leaders).

After 17 years as partner in an arbitration/litigation boutique, Tobias Zuberbühler has started his own practice as independent arbitrator in order to focus more on his arbitrator work.

Tobias graduated from the University of Zurich Law School (lic. iur.) and holds an LL.M. degree in International Legal Studies from Golden Gate University, San Francisco. He is fluent in German, English (7 years USA) and French.

Experience & Education

2023 - today

Zuberbühler Arbitration, Winterthur

2005 - 2023

Partner at Lustenberger + Partners, Zurich

2011 - 2012

Anti-Corruption Officer, Credit Suisse AG, Zurich

1999 - 2005

Senior Associate at MME Partners, Zurich

1997 - 1998

Junior Associate at Wyler & Lustenberger, Zurich 

1999

Zurich Bar, Admitted to all Swiss Courts

1996

LL.M. International Legal Studies, Golden Gate University, San Francisco

1994

lic. iur., University of Zurich

May - Album of the Month

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BAND – Miles Davis

Album – Kind of Blue

Kind of Blue is regarded by many critics as Miles Davis’ masterpiece, the greatest jazz album ever recorded, and one of the greatest albums of all times. Besides bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, avant-garde jazz and jazz fusion, Miles Davis was also one of the creators of modal jazz. For those (like me) who don’t have a clue what modal jazz means: this type of jazz “makes use of musical modes, often modulating among them to accompany the chords instead of relying on one tonal center used across the piece.” Whatever – the sound is sublime. 

With Davis as leader of a sextet featuring saxophonists John Coltrane and Julian “Cannonball” Adderley, pianist Bill Evans, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Jimmy Cobb (with new band pianist Wynton Kelly replacing Evans on “Freddie Freeloader”), the album was recorded at Columbia’s 30th Street Studio in New York City in two sessions on March 2 and April 22, 1959. The band members were only given sketches of scales and melody lines on which to improvise. Once the musicians were assembled in the studio, Davis gave brief instructions for each piece and then immediately set to recording the album. 

This is quite the opposite of today’s recording techniques, where band members are sometimes replaced by other (studio) musicians with better skills to iron out the edges, before everything is run through AI to eliminate any remaining originality.

Starting with “So What” (the much better choice for a funeral song than the pathetic “My Way” by Frank Sinatra), most of the songs on this album have become jazz classics. Rolling Stone magazine rated Kind of Blue number 12 on its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all times.

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