Clients

Banks and financial institutions

Major German and foreign commercial banks and financial services providers regularly place their trust in our expertise.

We also advise numerous domestic and foreign investment companies and investment funds, and are regularly instructed by stock exchanges, cooperative banks, Landesbanken, Sparkassen and other institutions from the public-law sector.

Our services span the entire spectrum of banking law, stock exchange law, loan & lending law and capital markets law, including financial regulatory law and the particular features of investment law.

Alongside comprehensive transactional and structuring advice, a focus of our work in this field lies in contentious disputes – both between banks and financial services providers themselves and between such institutions and third parties. We are mandated by clients in complex individual proceedings and in the management of model case and mass litigation. We are also regularly nominated as arbitrators and arbitration experts.

Companies

Large national and international companies rely on our competence – for which it is not the size of the firm that is decisive, but the high qualification and comprehensive expertise of its advisers. We act for well-known listed companies, particularly within our sector focuses of banking, technology and innovation, retail and consumer goods, and services, advising our clients and representing them in pre-litigation and litigation disputes. Medium-sized enterprises from industry, commerce and the services sector entrust us with all questions across the whole of company and commercial law.

We advise at the level of management or shareholders on restructurings, company acquisitions and disposals, and on questions of corporate governance. Medium-sized enterprises find with us efficient, sustainable and pragmatic legal advice from a single source.

Board members and managers

Our clients include management board members, managing directors, and members of supervisory and administrative boards, who turn to us on the widest variety of questions of corporate law, corporate governance and compliance. Our work ranges from expert legal opinions, through support in negotiations – for example of service agreements and severance arrangements – to advice and representation in contentious disputes. Representation in complex liability cases, in close cooperation with D&O insurers, is one of the focal points of our practice.

Family offices and high-net-worth individuals

Numerous wealthy private individuals and family offices have relied on the counsel of our lawyers over many years of collaboration. At the heart of these engagements lies advice on matters of company and succession law. We support family businesses and entrepreneurial families in succession planning and structuring. Further focal points of our work lie in the drafting of wills and the realisation of our clients’ last wishes, including the establishment and long-term support of foundations.

Shareholders and investors

We advise shareholders on the exercise of their rights, on the structuring of shareholders’ agreements, and in disputes with fellow shareholders or with company management.

We accompany active investors in safeguarding and proactively enforcing their shareholder rights, both out of court and before the courts. Alongside our comprehensive corporate-law know-how, national and international clients in this field benefit from our unusually broad litigation expertise – in particular our long-standing tactical experience drawn from complex and intensively fought disputes.

Through several leading decisions, our lawyers have significantly shaped the development of the law in this area in recent years.