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Caroline dos Santos
Counsel

Caroline dos Santos, LL.M.

Languages
  • French
  • English
  • Portuguese
  • Spanish
  • German
Social media

Caroline dos Santos is Counsel in the Geneva office, where she focuses her practice on Dispute Resolution and Commercial matters. She advises and represents clients in commercial and corporate disputes before arbitral tribunals and Swiss courts and assists them in navigating contentious and non-contentious matters in domestic and cross-border contexts. 

Caroline acts under several major institutional rules, including ICC, Swiss Rules, UNCITRAL, and AAA, with a focus on large-scale claims and emergency relief. She also assists clients with the enforcement of arbitral awards before the Swiss courts and regularly acts as an arbitrator.

Her main areas of expertise include contract law, with a particular focus on infrastructure and construction projects, including data centers, sales, distribution and joint ventures. 

In parallel, she regularly advises on the drafting and negotiation of commercial agreements, ensuring consistency between transactional structuring and dispute strategy, including joint ventures and shareholders agreements, as well as distribution agreements.

She was admitted to the Swiss Bar in 2016. Prior to joining CMS, Caroline worked as an associate in other leading law firms in Geneva.

Caroline is Co-Chair of ASA below 40 (the under-40 group of the Swiss Arbitration Association) and represents the Swiss Arbitration Association within the framework of its Ambassador Programme for Brazil.

Publications

  • "Revisiting the Arb-Med-Arb Proceedings: Lessons from Swiss Court Rooms", Kluwer Mediation Blog, 2025 [co-author] 
  • "Challenge of an Arbitrator for His Statements on Social Media: Swiss Supreme Court Revisits Parties’ Duty of Curiosity", Revista Brasileira de Arbitragem, Volume XX, Issue 80, 2023 
  • "Impact of Radical Changes of Circumstances on Contractual Relationships Under Swiss Law and English Law: Tomato-Tomato?", Business Law Review by Kluwer Law, Vol. 44, Issue 2, 2023 [co-author] 
  • "Rewriting investors’ claim labelled in USD in near worthless Syrian pounds not extra petita or violation of public policy", ASA Bulletin, Volume 40, No. 1, 2022 
  • “Banking and finance disputes: to arbitrate or not to arbitrate, that is the question”, SZW/RSDA, Revue Suisse de droit des affaires et du marché financier (RSDA), Issue 4/2020 [co-author] 
  • “Chronique de jurisprudence suisse – Loi fédérale sur le droit international privé (LDIP) (2011-2019) (2e partie)”, Journal du droit international (Clunet), 2020 [co-author] 
  • “Arbitration Law Reform in Switzerland: William Tell’s Apple-shot?”, Revista Brasileira de Arbitragem, Volume XVI, No. 61, 2019 
  • “European Court of Human Rights Rules upon Sports-Related Decision: Switzerland Condemned”, ASA Bulletin, Volume 37, No. 1, 2019 
  • “The RFC Seraing’s saga goes on: arbitration clause contained in FIFA’s statutes held invalid under Belgian law”, ASA Bulletin, Volume 36, No. 4, 2018 
  •  “Swiss Federal Supreme Court Confirms Independence of CAS: Note on Decision 4A_260/2017 of 20 February 2018”, ASA Bulletin, Volume 36, No. 2, 2018 
  • “International arbitration: a no-woman’s land?”, Beiträge zu aktuellen Themen an der Schnittstelle zwischen Recht und Betriebswirtschaft III, Zürich, 2017 
  • “Third-party funding in international commercial arbitration: a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”, ASA Bulletin, Volume 35, No. 4, 2017

Memberships & Roles

  • Swiss Bar Association (SBA/FSA) 
  • Geneva Bar Association (ODAGE) 
  • Swiss Arbitration Association (ASA; ASAb40)

Lectures list

  • Moderator, "Arbitration Without Borders: Do Legal Cultures Still Matter?" (Geneva), ASA Ambassador Programme for Brazil, 25 June 2026 
  • Panelist, "The Swiss Arbitration Centre’s Practice Note: What Stands Out?" (Geneva), ASA below 40 – Spring Seminar, 9 June 2023 
  • Panelist, "Carte blanche to Me Laurent Lévy", presentation of recent Swiss Federal Supreme Court case law in the field of international arbitration (Geneva), ASA Geneva Group, 9 December 2021 
  • Co-organiser and Moderator, "Oral Advocacy in International Arbitration" (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Young ICCA, 7 May 2018

Education

  • 2017 – LL.M., UCL, University College London, Faculty of Laws (London, UK) 
  • 2016 – Swiss Bar Examination 
  • 2014 – Certificate of Specialisation in Legal Practice, University of Geneva (Switzerland) 
  • 2014 – Master of Law, University of Lausanne (Switzerland)
  • 2012 – Bachelor of Law, University of Lausanne (Switzerland)

Insights by Caroline

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