Practice Areas
With almost 30 years' experience, Francesca Rolla's activity spans almost all areas of contentious work (product liability litigation, mass torts and white collar crimes, commercial litigation) across industry sectors as diverse as consumers goods, automotive, insurance and life sciences. She is head of the Investigations, White Collar & Fraud group in Italy. Francesca is one of the Litigation practice's primary liaisons to the firm's global Aerospace & Defense sector team.
Be it a corporate dispute, a class action or a complex commercial litigation, domestic or cross border, before State courts of Arbitral tribunals, Francesca is at the forefront of Italian litigators, with the ability to "translate the obscure Italian proceedings into easily understandable language". Drawing on her extensive experience in product liability and mass tort litigation, Francesca assists clients in conducting internal investigations and provides coordinated defence strategies in the context of investigations by criminal or other public authorities, often with cross border relevance (for example, in investigations commenced by the US Department of Justice). She helps clients constructing robust, tailor-made, compliance and risk mitigation solutions. As technology influences all areas of law and may disrupt any industry, Francesca works with clients to help them understand their shifting risk landscape as to ensure they're maximizing the use of technology to mitigate those risks, whether in compliance programs or through the use of AI in litigation.
She is ranked as Leading Individual in Chambers, Legal 500, and Who'sWho Legal for Dispute Resolution, Life sciences and Product Liability. She won the 2019 TopLegal Award as best in Litigation, the 2015 Euromoney LGM European Woman in Business Law Award as best in Product Liability and the 2014 ILO Client Choice Award for Product Liability. She is listed as Life Science Star by LGM Life Sciences.
Work Highlights
Product litigation and compliance assistance for major U.S. and European life sciences companies, including advice on criminal investigations and proceedings.
Defending companies in a range of industries in individual and multi-party product liability claims.
Successfully assisting a leading tobacco manufacturer in the first product-related class action filed in Italy.
Defending a University in a landmark litigation over ownership of an estate in Italy, bequeathed to our client.
Assisting a American multinational technology company with internal investigations and defence in pending criminal investigations for alleged tax crimes and corruption.
Defending a Fortune 500 multinational in product compliance criminal investigations and in the parallel proceedings before the Italian Regulatory Safety Authority.
Assisting clients in different industries (automotive; chemical; consumer, life sciences, luxury) in contractual litigations and in supply chain disputes.
Assisting a beverage corporation in a complex commercial dispute in Italy and abuse of dominance, breach of contract and millionaire debt recovery.
Assisting an international manufacturing company in two follow on actions brought before the Courts of Bologna and Genoa by more than 70 companies claiming damages.
