Cleary Gottlieb’s German offices are located in Frankfurt and Cologne, two of the country’s primary business and legal centers. The Frankfurt office, established in 1991, is located in the Main Tower, a distinctive high rise in the heart of the central business district. The Cologne office, opened in 2004, is housed in an attractive Jugendstil villa near the historical city center. Our German offices have a combined total of approximately 70 lawyers, the large majority of whom received their primary legal training in Germany. More than half of our lawyers are also qualified to practice in more than one jurisdiction, with a significant number of our German-trained lawyers also being members of the New York Bar. The German practice is devoted to providing clients with integrated German, pan-European and global legal advice in a broad range of practice areas.
Cleary Gottlieb is one of the foremost firms in Europe in public and private mergers & acquisitions transactions. In addition to traditional mergers and acquisitions activity (both private and public), our M&A practice includes the restructuring of corporate groups (including going privates and delistings), as well as private equity/venture capital investments and buy-outs, joint ventures and outsourcing agreements. A large proportion of our practice involves cross-border and multi-jurisdictional transactions, both within Europe and globally. We also provide integrated and comprehensive advice on all tax and regulatory matters related to an M&A transaction. A number of our partners commented on the new German takeover law including its first English language analysis, the German Takeover Law – A Commentary (2002). In 2005 our M&A partners published the Takeover Law Compendium - Germany covering up-to-date legal and factual analyses of public tender offers and takeovers in German. An updated edition of the Compendium was released in 2007.
Cleary Gottlieb is also one of the leading law firms in Germany in the area of capital markets. In recent years, our Frankfurt-centered capital markets team has acted as issuers’ or underwriters’ counsel in some of the largest and most innovative equity and debt capital markets transactions in Germany and Central Europe, as well as providing ongoing advice to a number of leading German corporations in connection with their reporting obligations under the U.S. securities laws. We also have an active practice in the areas of project finance, structured finance and derivatives and structured products, as well as capital markets-related regulatory advice.
Our antitrust and competition team is focused in our Cologne office which is centrally located for access to the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt), the court of appeal for domestic antitrust proceedings and the headquarters of many of the country’s leading companies. Our antitrust and competition team provides both international and German clients with the full range of advice on German and European antitrust law (including merger control, cartels, alleged abuse of a dominant position and state aid matters), as well as representing parties in antitrust proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt), the European Commission and the German courts.
Our Frankfurt tax group advises on tax aspects of M&A and capital markets transactions, including the taxation of corporate restructurings, innovative financial products, hybrid financing structures and pre-IPO tax planning. The tax group is also experienced in advising on matters of German international tax law (including Double Taxation Treaties and German CFC Rules) regarding both inbound and outbound structures, as well as EU law aspects of tax matters.
Our growing German litigation and arbitration team represents clients from many sectors, including corporate clients as well as governments and governmental organizations, in a broad range of complex cases. Our practice focuses on lawsuits and arbitration involving corporate and commercial law as well as public international and antitrust law. A large number of lawsuits and arbitration proceedings have cross-border aspects and concern matters decided by parallel court proceedings handled by courts in different countries respectively international courts.
For more information about the firm’s practice areas, click here.
Click here for information pursuant to Sec. 6 of the German Teleservices Act (Angaben gemäß § 6 Teledienstegesetz).