Shearman & Sterling was named Litigation and Dispute Resolution Team of the Year for its work advising the Dow Chemical Company on one of the largest arbitration awards ever. Dow was awarded US$2.5bn (£1.6bn) in a dispute with state-owned Kuwaiti giant Petrochemical Industries Company that drew to a close in the London High Court in March 2013. 

The case set new standards because of both the size of the award and the strategic interest to Dow, whose share price jumped by 4% when the tribunal's decision was revealed. 

The dispute arose after the Kuwaiti Government pulled out of a joint venture between Dow and Petrochemical Industries to create the world's largest polyethylene manufacturer just a few weeks after the deal had been struck. News of the deal's collapse, which came in December 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis, rocked Dow, reducing its market capitalisation by $3bn (£2bn). Having advised Dow on the joint venture, Shearman's international arbitration team was called in to advise on the subsequent dispute. A seven-partner team working out of the firm's offices in Abu Dhabi, London, New York, Washington DC and Paris oversaw the case. The team included four Arabic-speaking arbitration lawyers as case documents were in both English and Arabic.