Hengeler Mueller

Managing Partners: Georg Frowein and Rainer Krause
Number of partners worldwide: 90
Number of other lawyers worldwide: 190
International Offices: Brussels, London, Shanghai

Firm Overview:
Hengeler Mueller specialises in high-end legal advice to companies in complex business transactions. The firm’s clients include major German, and international entities, notably over the last years 22 of the DAX-30, 31 of the EuroSTOXX-50 and 14 of the 30 Dow Jones Industrial Index as well as leading private equity investors and non-listed companies in a variety of sectors.

Hengeler Mueller is dedicated to absolute quality of legal advice and the highest standards of service, delivering the most creative and efficient solutions designed to optimise clients’ business objectives. The prerequisite: a true, independent and homogeneous partnership of professionals, entrepreneurial in thinking and handling and international in education, training and practice. Cultivating an in-depth knowledge and expertise in a wide spectrum of business law matters, lawyers at Hengeler Mueller establish for each transaction result-oriented and cost-effective teams — interactively in various fields of practice — tailor-made for client requirements.

Main Areas of Practice:
Practice areas are mergers and acquisitions, private equity, corporate, banking and finance including banking regulatory law, asset management, syndicated lending, acquisition finance, project finance, capital markets including equity, debt, securitisation, credit derivatives, competition, restructuring/ insolvency, tax, labour and employment, regulatory and environment, IP/IT, real estate, litigation, arbitration and ADR.

In addition to main practice areas, Hengeler Mueller provides comprehensive legal advice in all major industry sectors, e.g. automotive, banking and finance institutions, chemicals, energy and utilities sector, family-owned enterprises and entrepreneurial families, healthcare/life sciences, infrastructure/transport/logistics, primary products, private equity, real estate industry, TMT and insurance sector.

International Experience:
Hengeler Mueller strongly believes that cross-border service of the highest quality can best be provided by independent firms, upholding their own partnership of professionals and thus strengthening their respective brands by mutual commitment to absolute standards of service. The firm’s co-operation with pre-eminent firms in major jurisdictions on cross-border matters is far more than a mere‘network’ or ‘referral relationship.’

Through integrated teams, clients have access to international legal services that are client-focused, cost-effective and result-oriented. Hengeler Mueller’s success in cross-border representations demonstrates that integrated teams give clients what they want: seamless handling of the transaction from beginning to end and legal advice of unsurpassed quality.

In any given matter, Hengeler Mueller will choose the lawyers from each jurisdiction to be included in the integrated team in consultation with the client (client-focused) - keeping in mind the requirements of the matter (result-oriented). The result is a tailor-made team of the best lawyers from the relevant jurisdictions, with clear management responsibilities and no unnecessary duplication of work (cost-effective). The client will liaise with a single partner contact and receive a single invoice. For decades, Hengeler Mueller has been working intensively with‘best friends’ Slaughter and May (UK) in addition to Bonelli Erede Pappalardo (Italy), Bredin Prat (France), Uría Menéndez (Spain), De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek (the Netherlands) and further renowned European firms. Hengeler Mueller’s long established relationships to top law firms in the US continue to be a focal point of its international presence.

In recent years, the firm has expanded its cooperation with leading law firms in China, India, Russia and other countries with rapidly growing economies.

Clients are able to call on integrated teams accustomed to working together as a unit. Hengeler Mueller has established with the above firms standing practice groups in all relevant areas of work and industry sectors.

The firm pools precedents, know-how and expertise, engage in lawyer training programmes, implement a continuous partner programme of secondments involving both partners and associates, and maintain compatible IT systems. The described co-operation is, in the interests of the client, non-exclusive. If the client wishes to work with a certain firm, Hengeler Mueller teams up with the firm of the client’s choice.

Hengeler Mueller neither imposes law firms on clients nor cross-sells the services of branch offices. Given that the firm does not export one single approach, integrated teams continue to find great favour among clients and demonstrate a high degree of success.