In 29 years of practicing law, Robert R. Amsterdam has become a well known and highly sought after international litigator, with experience handling politically sensitive cases. Active in practice areas ranging from litigation, defense, Alien Torts, tax, and corporate law, Amsterdam has both defended and prosecuted cases for and against governments and corporations. Canadian Lawyer says of Amsterdam that he is "one of the few lawyers in the world [good at] taking on the state when the state starts acting like a criminal."
Amsterdam has worked in countries as diverse as Hungary, Nigeria, and Venezuela and is deeply experienced with politically sensitive cases. He first came into the media spotlight when became involved in the representation of the Gutierrez family of Guatemala, who were involved in a high-profile lawsuit against two of the country's most powerful men, who alleged in fraud and money laundering activities. Amsterdam & Peroff were also featured in Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper as one of the most unique small law firms, following Dean Peroff's victory on behalf of the People's Republic of China for market status on automotive windshield manufacturing.
Highly regarded for his strategic innovation and international reach, Amsterdam was retained by the Russian corporation YUKOS-Group MENATEP in 2003 for the defence of former CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky - one of the most high profile cases in modern Russian history. Khodorkovsky approached Amsterdam after having learned of his innovative political approaches in handling the Guatemalan case. Amsterdam has also been hired for the defense of the political prisoner Eligio Cedeno in Venezuela, and is counselor to many other high-level political opposition members, from Nigeria to Singapore.
In 1980, he co-founded the Toronto-based law firm Amsterdam & Peroff with Dean A. Peroff and has represented well-known global corporations including PriceWaterhouseCoopers and the Four Seasons Hotel Group. Amsterdam has delivered speeches at organisations such as the Carnegie Endowment, the Fraser Institute and the International Commission of Jurists and has debriefed parliamentarians and NGO leaders on a variety of political, legal, and business issues. Amsterdam has pioneered a practice in an area known as "corporate foreign policy," which examines the new roles that corporations must play in politics, and the forays into the business world of sovereign state owned companies.
His expert legal commentary is frequently featured in the media, and he has appeared in the American press Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the UK press the Financial Times, Guardian, German press Die Press, Tagesspiegel, the French press Le Monde amongst others, and was prominently featured in a BBC documentary. Robert Amsterdam has also written many legal and scholarly articles including the recent article which he co-authored and was published in the Fordham Journal - "The duality of state co-operation within international and national criminal cases". Amsterdam also has a successful blog www.robertamsterdam.com.
London's The Lawyer magazine named Robert Amsterdam one of the Hot 100 Attorneys in the UK for 2005.
Robert Amsterdam is a member of the Canadian, New York and International Bar Associations. He earned his BA from Carleton University in Ottawa and studied law at Queens University in Ontario (LLB). In 2008, Amsterdam was accredited as a British solicitor to practice law in the United Kingdom.
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