Guillaume Léonard

Public Law

Foreign direct investments

Administrative and Constitutional Litigation

Guillaume Léonard is Counsel and a member of the Bredin Prat's Public Law team, advising on both transactional and litigation matters. He co-heads the firm’s FDI practice.

Guillaume has developed a high level of expertise over the years in the field of foreign direct investment (FDI) control. He regularly advises clients on their investment projects in France across all sensitive sectors (defense, healthcare, energy, telecommunications, food, critical technologies, etc.). Highly experienced in this area, he supports clients throughout the entire authorization process and assists them in addressing issues that may arise from the implementation of commitments in the execution phase. He has been involved in negotiating undertakings with public authorities in major transactions in France. With a thorough understanding of the legal framework applicable in other countries, he also assists in complex transactions involving multi-jurisdictional authorizations process.

Moreover, Guillaume regularly assists clients on transactional and litigation matters involving highly complex issues in public law in regulated or closely supervised sectors (energy, audiovisual, defence, health, aviation and airports, agriculture, etc.) and in the public sector (governance issues in state-owned companies, lobbying issues, etc.). He also has considerable expertise in European law and constitutional law.

In addition, Guillaume lectures on public law at the School of Public Affairs at Sciences Po Paris and gave seminars in administrative law at the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. He will be in charge, from the academic year 2025 – 2026, of a new class on FDI law at the Law School of Sciences Po Paris.

He is the co-rapporteur for the work currently being carried out by the Environmental Law Committee of the legal think-tank, the Club des Juristes, on infrastructure and the green transition.