Professional Experience:
Mr. Kocher has over 40 years of litigation and alternative dispute resolution experience. Clients can expect Mr. Kocher to contribute a wealth of practical business experience to the resolution process. He has served as General Counsel and Litigation Counsel for a Fortune 500 company and worked in and with small corporations and governmental entities in reaching viable and sensible solutions to often emotional as well as complex problems.
While most engagements involve the arbitration or mediation of contracts and agreements, his experience covers a wide range of matters, including corporate governance, acquisitions, mergers, dispositions, licensing, antitrust, employment, environmental, product liability, toxic tort and intellectual property issues. Cases successfully resolved have been both domestic and international in scope.
Environmental expertise includes allocation of responsibility, risk assessment, deminimis settlements, indoor air quality, hazardous waste areas, FIFRA and toxic tort claims involving asbestos, UFFI, formaldehyde, VCM and other chemicals.
International experience includes the arbitration, litigation, and mediation of a variety of disputes in a dozen foreign jurisdictions including Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Brazil and the European Common Market involving such diverse matters as joint venture agreements, acquisitions and dispositions, distributor agreements, trademarks and unfair competition, stockholder rights, commodity purchases, antitrust obligations, maritime issues, product liability and toxic waste disputes.
Examples:
Conducted arbitration of a dispute between two international companies regarding a trademark license.
Developed the dispute resolution process to resolve a multi-million dollar petrochemical breach of contract claim.
Developed an ADR procedure, including a factfinding process to resolve a major antitrust complaint.
Successfully developed 'business alternatives' to resolve substantial corporate antitrust claims and avoided participation in class action litigation.
Arbitrated multi-million dollar breach of contract claim in Switzerland.
Successfully arbitrated breach of joint venture agreement in New York and Tokyo including obtaining injunctive relief in aid of arbitration.