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Practice Area Definitions: Germany
Arbitration
This practice area identifies firms and lawyers advising and representing clients in the resolution of disputes via an arbitrator or arbitration panel in both ad hoc and institutional arbitrations. There are separate lawyer rankings for the top arbitration counsels (Arbitration) and arbitrators (Arbitrators) in Germany. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each of these tables but should provide thirty referees for Arbitration as a whole.
Artificial Intelligence
This practice area highlights firms and lawyers in Germany with experience across a variety of topics relating to AI, including its governance, competition and transactions in the field. Other relevant work here includes advising clients including technology companies, AI developers and start-ups on the AI regulatory landscape and on their development of AI policies. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees.
Banking & Finance
This practice area spans a variety of topics relating to banking transactions, including both borrower and lender clients. It encompasses acquisition finance (transactions involving arranging finance for acquisitions acting for lenders or borrowers), general bank lending (including syndicated lending, structured finance, leveraged finance and NPLs) and refinancings. The refinancing and restructuring of existing loans and debtor in possession financing is also included here. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights each to Banking & Finance and its Regulatory subsection but should only provide thirty referees for Banking & Finance as a whole.
Banking & Finance: Regulatory
This subsection of Banking & Finance includes work on regulatory matters in the financial services, such as the implementation of new directives and national legislation, regulatory aspects of fintech and other general regulatory advice.
Capital Markets
There are four Capital Markets tables in the Germany Guide, as outlined below. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each of these but can only provide thirty referees to Capital Markets as a whole.
Capital Markets: Debt
This subsection of Capital Markets involves advice on the issuing of debt securities on a stock exchange, including stand-alone bond issues, MTN programmes, convertible and exchangeable bond offerings and high yield bonds.
Capital Markets: Derivatives
This subsection of Capital Markets focuses on regulatory and transactional legal advice regarding derivatives products. This includes exchange-traded derivatives, OTC derivatives, securitised derivatives and interest rate derivatives.
Capital Markets: Equity
This subsection of Capital Markets involves advice on IPOs, share buybacks, follow-on offerings, right offerings, capital increases, accelerated bookbuilds and block trades.
Capital Markets: Structured Finance
This subsection of Capital Markets focuses on structured finance encompassing CDOs (both cash and synthetic), repackagings and hybrid, synthetic and structured note products.
Commercial Contracts
This practice area focuses on firms and lawyers assisting their clients with agreements relating to the establishment and development of commercial activities between non-public sector entities. It primarily looks at cooperation agreements for the carrying out of commercial activities, including ongoing supply, agency, distribution, franchising or manufacturing agreements relating to trading activities and commercial strategies. Such agreements can be either domestic or cross-border in nature. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to this practice area.
Competition/European Law
This practice area encompasses contentious and non-contentious matters arising under EU, German and international competition law, including cartels, abuse of a dominant market position and merger control. Antitrust and state aid are also considered here. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights each to Competition/European Law and its Litigation subsection but should only provide thirty referees for Competition/European Law as a whole. Please note that Chambers’ Global Guide has an Expertise Based Abroad ranking for Competition in Germany, which displays lawyers based outside Germany that are active before the Bundeskartellamt. Firms do not need to submit for this particular subsection.
Competition/European Law: Litigation
This subsection of Competition/European Law ranks lawyers that specialise in competition litigation.
Compliance
This practice area encompasses design and implementation of corporate compliance programmes, anti-corruption legislation, crime prevention and data protection compliance. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees. Compliance programmes and investigations that relate to other specific practice areas in the Germany Guide (such as Competition/European Law) should be kept to those sections.
Construction
This practice area covers contractual adviser work within the construction industry for suppliers, such as developers, contractors, engineers and architects, and clients, such as corporates and state authorities, on their building plans. It covers both litigious and non-litigious matters. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees.
Corporate/M&A
This practice area covers both public company and private equity matters. It includes company acquisitions, dispositions and capitalisations, entity selection and formation, operating and partnership agreements and securities and governance matters. It also covers transactions designed to help restructuring within companies and their subsidiaries by change of ownership. Priority is placed on primary representatives – firms and lawyers acting for buyers and sellers. Corporate/M&A has three valued-based rankings – up to EUR250 million, EUR250 million to EUR500 million, and above EUR500 million. Firms can only be listed once in the practice area and so may only provide up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to one of these subsections.
Employment
This practice area covers both contentious and non-contentious employment matters relating to day-to-day business issues as well as mergers and takeovers. It includes employment litigation related to sex, race and age discrimination and issues of employee immigration and transfers. Working hours are also considered here. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights each to Employment and its Pensions subsection but should only provide thirty referees for Employment as a whole.
Employment: Pensions
This subsection of Employment spans all work relating to pensions.
Energy
This practice area spans work from the renewables, oil and gas and other natural resources industries from across the energy sector. Advice on the development of refineries, pipelines, LNG and petrochemical terminals, power plants and wind power, waste-to-energy and hydro-wave technology are all considered here. This section also includes contentious energy-related cases and the construction and development of energy infrastructure such as wind farms. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights each to Energy’s Regulatory and Transactional subsections but should only provide thirty referees for Energy as a whole.
Energy: Regulatory
This subsection of Energy focuses on the regulatory aspects of energy law. It includes regulatory advice on permitting and licensing as well as representation in contentious regulatory cases.
Energy: Transactional
This subsection of Energy focuses on the transactional aspects of energy law, particularly transactions involving energy plants or energy projects. Work submitted here should demonstrate a strong focus on the energy sector.
Healthcare
This practice area relates to the providers of healthcare, such as hospitals, care homes and other medical institutions, as well as work relating to medical devices and technology. Work can include transactions involving medial institutions, procurement, regulatory advice, operational licensing and contracts. Health insurance mandates are also relevant here. This section prioritises firms and lawyers that demonstrate an in-depth knowledge of the healthcare sector and are sought after specifically for their industry expertise. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees.
Insurance
This practice area includes both contentious and non-contentious insurance and reinsurance matters. Coverage claims litigation, broker’s negligence and both ‘facultative’ and ‘treaty’ reinsurance disputes are covered on the contentious side. There is also an element of professional negligence issues arising from insurance disputes. All regulatory issues are considered on the non-contentious side. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees.
Intellectual Property
There are four Intellectual Property tables in the Germany Guide, as outlined below. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each of these but can only provide thirty referees to Intellectual Property as a whole.
Intellectual Property: Patent Attorneys: Contentious
This subsection of Intellectual Property ranks the top teams of patent attorneys in Germany. It includes contentious matters such as patent and opposition filing and infringement and nullity proceedings, firms and patent attorneys representing their clients in EPO and German Federal Patent Court oppositions, invalidity and nullity proceedings. Patent portfolio management is also considered here.
Intellectual Property: Patent Litigation
This subsection of Intellectual Property concerns patent-related lawsuits. Relevant work here includes firms and attorneys-at-law acting as plaintiffs and defendants in patent enforcement, infringement and nullity proceedings. Standard-essential patent litigation matters and FRAND licensing advice are also relevant here.
Intellectual Property: Patent Prosecution
This subsection of Intellectual Property refers to firms and lawyers filing patent applications for their clients and working on getting their patents off the ground.
Intellectual Property: Trade Mark & Unfair
Competition
This subsection of Intellectual Property refers to firms and lawyers representing their clients in trade mark enforcement, opposition and infringement proceedings and managing their trade mark portfolios. The filing of unfair competition claims is also relevant here.
International Trade
This practice area covers classic trade cases such as anti-dumping, countervailing duties, international sanctions, export control and other customs/tariff classifications and regulatory work. It also includes issues such as WTO and other treaty-based trade and investment disputes, bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations and market access issues. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees.
Investment Funds
This practice area ranks firms and lawyers advising in the world of investment funds. It covers work on behalf of sponsors and institutional investors, including fund formation, fund raising, investments, asset management regulatory matters, hybrid funds, fund-of-funds and spinouts. Unlike in some other jurisdictions, work relating to fund formation and structuring should be submitted to Investment Funds for the Germany Guide, rather than to Private Equity. Please note that Investment Funds does not include transactional work, disputes or the acquisition of assets (which should be submitted to Corporate/M&A, Arbitration and Litigation and Real Estate respectively instead). Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to this practice area.
Life Sciences
This practice area ranks firms and lawyers with in-depth knowledge of the life sciences sector, and relates especially closely to pharma, biotech and medical devices companies. Work should include transactions, regulatory, product liability, the procurement of life sciences products, contracts and clinical trials and approval work. Please note that Intellectual Property in the Germany Guide has three subsections dedicated to patent work, and so Life Sciences should focus less heavily on this. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to Life Sciences.
Litigation
This practice area concerns commercial disputes and spans their entire course from pre-trial negotiations, preparation for trial and trial to appeals and enforcement proceedings. Please note that arbitration mandates and white-collar crime cases should not be uploaded to Litigation but rather to Arbitration and White-Collar Crime respectively. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to Litigation.
Private Equity
This practice area covers firms and lawyers providing transactional advice for private equity clients, such as direct investments into private companies, buyouts of public companies (MBO, MBI, BIMBO), secondary transactions, take-privates, PIPEs and pre-IPO investments. It also takes into account LBO, M&A and recapitalisation matters. Private Equity in the Germany Guide has three subsections: High End, Mid Cap and Venture Capital. High End covers transactions above EUR300 million in value, while Mid Cap those below EUR300 million. Firms are ranked in either High End or Mid Cap and so may only provide up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to one of these two subsections.
Private Equity: Venture Capital
This subsection of Private Equity encompasses venture capital investments and transactions and work on behalf of venture capital firms. Firms can submit up to twenty work highlights specially here, but Venture Capital referees should be included within the thirty for Private Equity.
Projects
This practice area focuses on the development, financing (limited and non-recourse) and refinancing and acquisition / divestitures of large projects arising from the capital-intensive infrastructure and energy markets. Clients in this sector include sponsors, lenders, project originators and multilateral agencies and development banks. This section also features infrastructure matters such as toll road and bridge financing, rail and light rail systems and water desalination plants as well as state sponsored programmes (PPP / PFI) such as hospitals, schools, housing and prisons. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees.
Public Law
There are three Public Law tables in the Germany Guide, as outlined below. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each of these but can only provide thirty referees to Public Law as a whole.
Public Law: General
This practice area involves firms and lawyers advising authorities and companies from regulated industries on constitutional, administrative, subsidy and state aid issues, as well as advising private clients on concessions.
Public Law: Planning and Environment
This subsection of Public Law focuses on work in this field specific to planning and environment issues. This includes zoning, planning permission and related environmental considerations. Please note that work relating to the construction of energy plants should be submitted to Energy. Work put forward here must have Public Law aspects to it.
Public Law: Public Procurement/PPP
This subsection of Public Law ranks firms and lawyers that advise corporations and government bodies on the acquisition of goods or services by governmental entities. Areas covered include education, healthcare, social housing, transport and infrastructure.
Real Estate
This practice area ranks the top firms and lawyers in Germany focusing on real estate law. It considers transactions involving significant real estate assets and portfolios such as office buildings, residential developments and retail units. Regulatory advice is also considered here. Please note however that within the Germany Guide construction and development work should be submitted to Construction, not Real Estate. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights each to Real Estate and its Finance subsection but should only provide thirty referees for Real Estate as a whole.
Real Estate: Finance
This subsection of Real Estate involves the financing of the purchase of real estate assets and the financing of the construction of buildings. Firms and lawyers do not need to act exclusively for lenders but should have a healthy lender client base which gives them a significant volume of work in this field. Some firms and lawyers also handle aspects of complex debt capital markets such as securitisation, but the decision to rank them here will depend on their understanding of the underlying asset.
Restructuring & Insolvency
This practice area ranks firms and lawyers advising on cases of insolvency, bankruptcy and the restructuring of distressed assets. Restructuring work should be limited to situations of financial distress and work aimed at avoiding liquidation or insolvency. This can include administration, receivership, distressed M&A and pre-pack sales. Please note that within the Germany Guide general corporate restructuring should be submitted to Corporate/M&A and the restructuring of financial arrangements or instruments to Banking & Finance. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights each to Restructuring & Insolvency and its Administration subsection but should only provide thirty referees for Restructuring & Insolvency as a whole.
Restructuring & Insolvency: Administration
This subsection of Restructuring & Insolvency focuses on firms and lawyers acting as administrators for insolvent companies. It also includes work by court-appointed bankruptcy trustees.
TMT
There are four TMT tables in the Germany Guide, as outlined below. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each of these but can only provide up to thirty referees to TMT as a whole.
TMT: Data Protection
This subsection of TMT covers regulatory advice on data protection and privacy compliance, cases of data security breaches, representation of clients in investigations and enforcement actions or litigation relating to data protection and privacy. Work of an international nature can include advising clients with multinational operations on data security issues relating to cross-border transfers of data, such as in large-scale outsourcing transactions involving several countries, and on global or multi-jurisdictional privacy compliance programmes.
TMT: Information Technology
This subsection of TMT includes outsourcing between corporates and suppliers of IT services, IT procurement and regulatory matters in the sector. It also considers M&A activity in the sector but places priority on firms and lawyers that demonstrate a specialised knowledge in the requirements of the sector.
TMT: Media
This subsection of TMT includes contentious and non-contentious advertising and marketing matters as well as activity relating to film and television, music, publishing and theatre industries, such as their production, financing and distribution aspects.
TMT: Telecommunications
This subsection of TMT includes transactional and litigation advice to telecoms companies and wireless operators and the regulatory issues that such companies face. Other matters include interconnection and resales laws, multimedia agreements and licensing activity.
Tax
This practice area focuses on corporate tax. Relevant work includes the taxation of transactions, disputes and regulatory matters such as double tax treaties, transfer pricing, VAT, customs duties and the taxation of employee benefits. Any tax work for private clients should be submitted to Chambers’ High Net Worth Individuals Guide. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights and thirty referees to Tax.
Tax: Consultants
This subsection of Tax ranks lawyers who are not qualified in Germany (i.e. not a member of the Bar) but are tax advisers.
Transportation
There are three Transportation tables in the Germany Guide, as outlined below. Firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each of these but can only provide up to thirty referees to Transportation as a whole.
Transportation: Rail & Aviation Asset Finance
This subsection of Transportation focuses on firms and lawyers acting for clients such as leasing companies, banks, airlines and other financial institutions. It covers financing, including ECAs, EETCs and government-supported financings, and includes bankruptcy, operating leases including JOLCOs and the financing of commercial aircrafts, corporate jets and helicopters.
Transportation: Shipping
This subsection of Transportation covers both wet and dry shipping cases. Wet shipping refers to incidents and issues arising while at sea, including accidents, collisions, salvage and environmental liabilities. Dry shipping refers to matters arising while not at sea, such as contractual arrangements for construction, financing and registration of vessels, customs and licensing and documentation relating to charter-parties and bills of lading. It also includes contentious matters such as ownership rights, contractual breaches, insurance and reinsurance, ship arrests and the commissioning/decommissioning of vessels. For a firm or lawyer to achieve a ranking in this section, they must be seen to have core shipping expertise and be considered by clients as a go-to for specific shipping knowledge.
Transportation: Shipping: Finance
This subsection of Transportation focuses on all finance mandates specific to the shipping sector, such as financing agreements for building or acquiring vessels, refinancing of debt related to the industry, transfer of loan portfolios relating to the industry, creation of mortgages and sale and leaseback transactions.
White Collar Crime
White Collar Crime covers in-court criminal proceedings mainly relating to corruption and financial crimes. Matters include tax offences, money laundering, fraud, professional negligence, bribery, corruption and environmental crime. White Collar Crime covers work on behalf of corporate clients as well as private clients. There are three subsections within this practice area, Corporate Advisory, Defence Counsel and Criminal Tax Law, and firms may submit up to twenty work highlights to each but should only provide thirty referees to White Collar Crime as a whole.
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