Overview Practice Area Definitions: Global Practice Area Definitions: Asia-Pacific Practice Area Definitions: Canada Practice Area Definitions: Europe Practice Area Definitions: Latin America Practice Area Definitions: UK Practice Area Definitions: UK Bar Practice Area Definitions: USA Practice Area Definitions: High Net Worth Practice area definitions: Brazil Practice Area Definitions: Litigation Support and Crisis & Risk Management Practice Area Definitions: France Practice Area Definitions: AMECO (Africa, Middle East, Caribbean and Offshore) Practice Area Definitions: Greater China Region Practice Area Definitions: Germany
Practice Area Definitions: Germany
Arbitration
This practice area identifies law firms and lawyers advising
and representing clients in the resolution of disputes resolved via an
arbitrator or arbitration panel in both ad hoc and institutional arbitrations.
There are separate individual lawyer rankings for the top arbitration counsels
(Arbitration) and arbitrators (Arbitrators) in Germany, and law firms can
provide us with a submission for each of these tables.
Artificial Intelligence
This practice area highlights law 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.
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.
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: 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 law 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.
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. 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. Law 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. Law firms may upload separate work
highlights for this subsection but cannot provide a separate referee list.
Compliance
This practice area encompasses design
and implementation of corporate compliance programmes, anti-corruption
legislation, international sanctions, crime prevention and data protection
compliance. 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.
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 – law firms
and lawyers acting for buyers and sellers. The Germany Guide has two subsections
within Corporate/M&A, with these being High-End Capability and Mid-Market.
High-End Capability typically relates to matters valued at EUR500 million and
above, while Mid-Market refers to matters valued below EUR500 million. Law
firms can only be ranked in one or other subsection, not both, and as such can
only submit to one subsection.
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 and pensions are also considered here.
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.
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 law firms and lawyers that demonstrate an in-depth
knowledge of the healthcare sector and are sought after specifically for their
industry expertise.
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.
Intellectual Property
There are four Intellectual Property tables in the Germany
Guide, as outlined below. Law firms can provide us with a submission to each
one of these, but are only allowed to submit a total of 30 referees across the
four subsections.
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, law firms and
lawyers 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 law firms and lawyers
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 law 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 law 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, 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.
Investment Funds
This practice area ranks law 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, Dispute Resolution and Real Estate respectively
instead).
Life Sciences
This practice area ranks law 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 far less heavily on this subject.
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 submitted to Litigation but
rather to Arbitration and White-Collar Crime respectively.
Private Equity
This practice area covers law 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 covers transactions
below EUR300 million.
Private Equity: Venture Capital
This subsection of Private Equity encompasses venture
capital investments and transactions and work on behalf of venture capital
firms.
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.
Projects: Construction
This subsection of Projects 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.
Public Law
This practice area involves law 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 law firms and lawyers
who 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 law 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 Projects: Construction, and not to Real
Estate.
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. Law 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 in
Real Estate will depend on their understanding of the underlying asset.
Restructuring & Insolvency
This practice area ranks law 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.
Restructuring & Insolvency: Administration
This subsection of Restructuring & Insolvency focuses on
law firms and lawyers acting as administrators for insolvent companies. It also includes work by
court-appointed bankruptcy trustees.
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 law 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
here 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.
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: Rail & Aviation Asset Finance
This subsection of Transportation focuses on law 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 law 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 two
subsections within this practice area, Corporate Advisory and Defence Counsel,
and law firms are welcome to submit to both.
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