Lambadarios Law Firm

Managing Partner: Constantinos Lambadarios
Senior Partner: John Filiotis
Partners: Prokopis Dimitriadis, George Panopoulos, Konstantinos Botopoulos, Chara Daouti, Yannis Kourniotis, Melina Katsimi, Katerina Malanou, Harry Karampelis, Sotiris Dempegiotis, Lefkothea Nteka
Number of partners: 12
Languages: English, French, German, Greek
Offices: 3, Stadiou str, 5th floor, 105 62 Athens, Greece
Key Contact: Constantinos Lambadarios, Managing Partner, [email protected]

Firm Overview:
Lambadarios Law Firm is a leading Athens-based legal practice with a reputation for tackling complex and challenging work.

Founded in 1863 and now under the stewardship of managing partner Constantinos Lambadarios, the firm has evolved from a family firm into a thoroughly modern, international practice with a dynamic, problem-solving mindset, while retaining the traditional qualities of respect, integrity and personal service.

With a number of top-ranked partners and a highly skilled team of lawyers, the firm is recognised as one of the leading Greek firms in all of its key practices – M&A, Banking & Finance, Project Finance, Ligation & Dispute Resolution, Real Estate, Energy, Capital Markets, and TMT and Intellectual Property in Greece. Within these fields, the firm has advised on many of the most significant transactions and commercial developments in Greece’s recent past, from privatisations of state-owned utilities and major energy and infrastructure projects to cases involving emerging internet law and anti-trust actions.

Main Areas of Practice:
Banking, Capital Markets, International Finance
Finance
Company & Commercial
Corporate Restructuring
Competition - Antitrust
Employment
Energy, Oil & Gas
Intellectual Property
Litigation & Arbitration
Mergers & Acquisitions, Private Equity, Privatisations
TMT - Privacy - Internet
Project Finance - PPP
Public Procurement, Public Sector

Real Estate Corporate law and M&A, EU and competition, banking and finance, ΤΜΤ, Project Finance, public procurement, energy, oil/LNG Gas & renewables and capital markets. Its client base includes banks, financial institutions, insurance corporations, large industrial and commercial sector corporations and private individuals. Moreover, the firm has represented foreign and domestic clients in numerous litigations and arbitrations in the ICC and LCIA. The firm’s intellectual property expertise includes trademark and copyright law.

Antitrust & Competition:
The Competition law team has established a strong reputation for handling complex and high-profile cases, particularly those involving the increasingly active Hellenic Competition Commission (HCC). The firm routinely advises both domestic and international clients on all aspects of competition law, including the formation of selective and exclusive distribution networks in Greece.

It maintains good relations with the HCC and is well-positioned to help clients respond to its concerns and requirements. The team has handled a number of high-profile cases, including dominance and price-fixing allegations. It also support clients through the process of merger filing, including representing their interests in clearing merger control and fulfilling any commitments required. In the past, the HCC has been relatively quiet with regards to prosecuting potential cartel and dominance cases but businesses need to be alert to the evolving climate in such matters.

The firm advises clients on:

• applications for clearance of a merger or acquisition, or establishment of joint ventures
• abuse of dominant positions and cartels
• vertical agreements on distribution and supply of goods and services
• horizontal cooperation agreements
• state aids and subsidies
• issues arising from markets under regulation across a wide range of industries, including those subject to special regimes such as car manufacturing and mass media
• training in antitrust compliance
• handling dawn raids

The team advised companies in the largest single fine ever (€550m) to be imposed by the commission for abuse of dominance, and in the most complex cartel case ever to reach the commission, implicating over 30 construction companies over 20 years. The firm has also recently worked on cases involving allegations of concerted practices, abuse of collective dominance and export bans in the publishing sector.

The practice takes a multi-disciplinary approach, combining technical expertise in competition law and administrative law with specialist experience in M&A and litigation as well as deep industry sector knowledge. This enables the firm to support clients across all aspects of competition matters and any litigation that results, including appealing decisions of the HCC in the administrative courts.

Corporate:
The Corporate practice provides expert legal advice to domestic and international clients across a wide range of administrative, financial and governance issues.

Alongside the transactional work delivered by its pre-eminent M&A practice, the firm provides clients with legal expertise and advice to support their day-to-day activities, business launches and restructurings, and continuing regulatory compliance. Its Corporate clients span a wide range of sectors including banking, electricity, oil and gas, real estate, telecoms, software development, electronics, consumer goods, music, energy, payment systems, home appliances, building materials, and IT. The firm helps them to incorporate and liquidate, establish directors’ shareholdings and liabilities, and advise on matters of governance, particularly in relation to finance and ownership.

The team also conducts legal due diligence reviews in preparation for a variety of corporate events – including major transactions – and plays an active advisory role to a number of clients listed on the Athens Stock Exchange.

The Corporate team works closely with colleagues in Banking & Finance, M&A, Project Finance, Tax, TMT, privacy, litigation and Employment teams to provide a comprehensive, joined-up service in preparation for, during and after major corporate transactions to help ensure that clients’ businesses continue to operate efficiently and in compliance with the appropriate regulatory authorities.

The firm maintains an excellent working relationship with Baker & McKenzie corporate restructuring group and routinely advise as part of their global corporate team on large multinational transactions.

Areas of specialisation include:

• internal restructurings
• company formation and liquidation
• corporate governance
• directors and shareholders’ rights and liabilities
• the increase and reduction of registered share capital
• regulatory and compliance requirements
• ancillary agreements, such as shareholder and management agreements

Mergers & Acquisitions:
Lambadarios is one of Athens’s M&A powerhouses – a tier-one practice led by the firm’s highly ranked managing partner, Constantinos Lambadarios. With a large and experienced team, including several ranked partners who are among the foremost practitioners in the field, the firm has supported many of the most significant transactions in Greece’s recent history. Working with a wide range of corporate and institutional clients, the firm helps to conceive, nurture and execute the domestic and cross-border strategic transactions that are shaping the commercial landscape in Greece.

In supporting these transactions, the firm combines responsiveness and technical expertise with a strong understanding of the sector dynamics and our clients’ strategic priorities. From structuring and negotiating the deal to preparing documentation, completing the transaction and, where required, filing with the HCC, the M&A team provides expertise and client service that few, if any, rival teams can match.

The firm works with clients across a wide range of industry sectors on both the buy and sell side. The firm's aim is always to help them develop and realise the right deal for them as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible. Drawing on the expertise of colleagues in other specialisms – from Banking & Finance and Capital Markets to Employment, Tax and Real Estate – the firm helps clients get the deal done, including addressing the interests of relevant supervisory bodies.

Clients typically come to the firm for support with:

• mergers and acquisitions of private and listed companies
• takeovers of listed companies
• business transformations spin-offs and demergers
• privatizations
• compliance with competition regulations governing mergers, acquisitions and privatizations

Arbitration & Dispute Resolution:
Lambadarios is a longstanding and highly respected leader in Litigation & Dispute Resolution in Greece with a tier-one ranking and three partners listed in Chambers Europe. The firm has a strong track record in advising and representing major domestic and international clients in complex cases at all levels of civil and administrative courts, including the Supreme Court, the Conseil d’Etat and the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Its team of experienced specialists provides expert representation to clients – both plaintiffs and defendants – across a variety of sectors including technology, banking and finance, construction and infrastructure.

The firm's Litigation & Dispute Resolution teams work closely with colleagues across the firm, ensuring that its strategy in any dispute is always commercially focused and informed by detailed understanding of the clients’ business and sector dynamics. Head of Litigation John Filiotis has unparalleled experience in representing clients at the Supreme Court level, where he tries multiple cases each year, and the Arbitration team includes Constantinos Lambadarios, George Panopoulos and Prokopis Dimitriadis.

Arbitration
In line with its commercially minded, practical approach, the firm always aims to help clients find the most appropriate and efficient solution to any dispute, prioritising achieving solutions over needlessly pursuing dry legal technicalities. Lambadarios is top-ranked in arbitration in Greece and regularly acts in domestic, ICC and LCIA cases. Three of its partners – John Filiotis, George Panopoulos and Constantinos Lambadarios – are also ICC appointed arbitrators, so it has a detailed knowledge of how best to prepare and present cases in courts of arbitration and at Expert Dispute Boards, where the firm is often required to draw on its knowledge and experience of construction and infrastructure projects. Constantinos and George are also members of the European Organization for Mediation and Arbitration panel of arbitrators. Prokopis Dimitriadis has served for many years as the legal counsel for ICC Hellas, the Greek chapter of the International Chamber of Commerce in Athens.

The firm is also able to provide expert mediation for clients seeking a less combative process and a more amicable resolution to disputes.

Litigation
The firm's Litigation team focuses on complex and challenging cases: the types of cases that demand a combination of experience, strong technical knowledge and skillful advocacy. The firm has extensive experience of representing clients at every level of Greece’s courts, as well as at supranational courts, and have established a reputation for providing commercially astute advice and robust written and verbal representation in pursuit of its clients’ interests. In each case, the firm prepares with diligence and rigor, ensuring that it focuses efforts and the judges’ attention on the most salient issues and points of law. Clients enjoy a very high level of partner involvement during the preparation of memoranda and submissions to ensure the maximum opportunity for success.

Banking & Finance:
Lambadarios is one of the leading Banking & Finance practices in Greece. The firm advises domestic and international clients in all aspects of financing, from origination and negotiation to documentation and closing, and, where necessary, enforcement and reorganisation. It is also known for its work as lenders counsel to major project finance transactions and for supporting International Financial Institutions such as EBRD and BSTDB in their work in Greece.

The Banking & Finance team works closely with colleagues in Capital Markets, Project Finance, M&A and Litigation to provide a seamlessly joined up service to a wide range of clients including Greek and international banks and major corporates.

The team was further strengthened last year with the arrival of Yannis Kourniotis, who brings a wealth of experience across all aspects of finance and a specialist focus on project finance, including many of the largest projects to occur in Greece over the last few years.

The firm's experience of working with all the major authorities and many financial institutions means that the firm can provide clients with advice that combines innovative thinking and problem solving with a practical, delivery-focused mindset. The firm has also established a reputation for excellence in handling matters relating to NPLs, where it has advised on several multi-billion-Euro transactions.

The firm advises clients on a wide range of matters including:

• lending, including:
• inter-group lending
• secured and unsecured financing
• convertible and exchangeable bonds
• asset-based finance
• acquisition finance
• real estate finance
• corporate lending
• securitization
• debt capital
• debt restructuring and reorganization, including troubled debts
• financial services
• private equity and venture capital
• structured and mezzanine finance
• non-performing loans (NPLs)

Capital Markets:
The Capital Markets team provides expert advice to domestic and international clients across the full range of regulatory and transactional matters in Greece’s debt and equity capital markets. With a team led by the former chair of the Hellenic Capital Markets Commission, its experience and expertise in listed and traded debt, high-yield bonds, equity issues and public M&A is among the strongest in Athens.

As the Greek financial markets continue to rebuild, the firm advises clients across a wide range of sectors on the most appropriate transaction structures and on how to execute successfully. The firm's deep regulatory expertise and strong connections to the supervisory authorities enables the firm to help clients navigate and comply with the requirements and directives of the Athens Stock Exchange and the Hellenic Capital Markets Commission, as well as the wider EU regulatory landscape. From corporate governance requirements and understanding of how decisions are made to the rules governing international activity, the firm provides legally accurate and commercially informed advice to issuers and underwriters on anything and everything to do with entering, operating in and exiting the Greek capital markets legally and profitably.

Clients typically come to the firm for advice on:

• transaction structure and execution across debt and equity markets
• Greek and EU regulatory frameworks
• interaction with the Capital Markets Commission and Athens Stock Exchange
• the everyday application of Greek and EU legislation within their businesses

Project Finance & Development:
Project Finance & Development is one of the firm's key practices. It has a rapidly growing reputation as a powerhouse in this field, providing expert advice to government, sponsors, lenders and bidders on a wide variety of major infrastructure and construction projects including airports, roads, energy, water and waste treatment, as well as major hotel and casino development. The firm pride itself on having the expertise and experience to support clients through the entire project lifecycle – from idea conception to turnkey application, turning ideas into sound, commercially informed legal negotiation.

Most large-scale projects involve both domestic and international parties, including international counsel. The firm is experienced in major international projects, advising overseas investors and negotiating with leading law firms from the US, UK and other parts of Europe. The team’s capabilities have recently been boosted still further by the arrival of Yannis Kourniotis as lead partner. As a ranked lawyer in both Banking & Finance, and Energy, and with wide-ranging experience in infrastructure, energy and PPP, Yannis takes the Project Finance & Development offer to a new level.

The firm is experienced in advising on all aspects of major projects in infrastructure, including roads, airports and waste treatment and port facilities, and energy projects including oil and gas and renewables. It has played a leading role in many of the largest projects in Greece in recent years, including undertaking multiple concurrent mandates for parties in the redevelopment of Greece’s airports.

By working with participants at every level in the project-finance lifecycle – government tenderers, systemic banks, equity providers and bidders – the firm understands the priorities and concerns of each party. It helps individual players to frame project documentation to be readily ‘financeable’ and ‘bankable’, helping to ensure that projects can proceed at maximum speed and with the best possible chances of success. And, with strong relationships with all the major domestic authorities, our experienced team understands how to take projects from conception to completion.

Energy:
The firm's Energy practice is among the strongest in Greece, having advised on many of the largest and most high-profile energy transactions and projects in recent years. Drawing on the strength of its practices in Utilities, Project Finance, M&A and Banking & Finance, the firm advises domestic and international players in Greece’s vibrant energy market on issues ranging from concessions, licensing, and exploration rights to financing and regulatory compliance.

Its wide-ranging experience of supporting energy companies and their investors and lenders has given the team a deep understanding of the dynamics of this increasingly important sector. Greece’s climate makes it a natural home for renewable energy projects, so, as well as advising clients on oil and gas projects, the firm has been prominent in wind, photovoltaic and solar projects and also in waste-to-energy developments.

The Energy team handles a wide range of energy law issues, both administrative and commercial, focusing on energy project licensing, development and finance, and the wholesale and retail sale of electricity to the benefit of both local and international clients. This work includes advisory, drafting and negotiating and, when disputes arise, litigation and arbitration.

The firm advises on all stages of tendering, negotiating and finally closing oil and gas concession agreements with the Greek State, concessions, licenses, development and operation of oil and gas industries, both downstream and upstream, including advising on financing and mergers and acquisitions.

This expertise, combined with its knowledge of the regulatory frameworks governing the energy sector in Greece, has made the firm one of the go-to firms for leading energy groups in their inward investment in Greece.

Areas of specialisation include:

• regulatory and licensing
• project finance
• power purchase agreements
• power plant construction
• renewable energy sources
• biofuels

TMT, Data Privacy & IP:
The firm's TMT and Intellectual Property practices provide expert advice on the establishment of internet-based businesses in Greece, and on the legal issues relating to software development, data use and security, and the protection and exploitation of intellectual property. Often working beyond the frontiers of written law, the firm's professionals help clients to anticipate and prepare for how the legal landscape will evolve, ensuring compliance and vigorously defending the ideas and technologies on which their success depends.

The firm advises major internet and knowledge platforms on launching and maintaining their operations in Greece, focusing on regulatory compliance, contracts and terms of use, and consumer law. It also represents these businesses in disputes with third parties, particularly in the areas of consumer claims, defamation, unfair competition, employment law and regulatory issues including data protection, confidentiality and tax. The firm has extensive experience in the area of data protection, advising some global brands on their activities in Greece, including major internet businesses, manufacturers and entertainment brands.

The firm also works with clients on contractual negotiations to support the sale or licensing of software, network solutions or online security and their legal obligations with regards to service levels, call centers, online tools, availability and security and privacy.

In today’s digital economy, all businesses are technology businesses in some way, and the firm advises clients across many sectors, from hospitals and healthcare to FMCG and auto manufacture, on issues relating to GDPR, confidentiality breaches and cyber security. The firm helps them to understand and meet their obligations in relation to Greek authorities, including how to respond to investigations and limit the potential reputational and financial impact of any claims made against them. Working closely with its colleagues in Litigation & Dispute Resolution, the firm also helps clients to identify and prosecute guilty or negligent parties where appropriate.

The firm has represented a number of technology companies in regulatory investigations conducted by the Hellenic Data Protection Authority (DPA) and the Hellenic Authority for Communication Security and Privacy (ADAE).

Real Estate:
The firm's Real Estate practice is one Athens’s top teams for advising on the acquisition, development and financing of property-related assets. The team provides specialist advice to a wide range of Greek and international clients, including many of the major REICs active in the Greek market, on all matters involving real estate, including compliance with local legislation, and planning and zoning regulations.

Real Estate is an important part of the firm's practice. The Real Estate team has worked with buyers or sellers in many of the most-significant transactions in the Greek market over the last few years. The firm has advised banks on the sale of assets held since the financial crash; on hotel and resort acquisitions and sales involving overseas investors and valued in the hundreds of millions of Euros; on large-scale projects that involve complicated urban planning, including infrastructure projects (road, port and airport), railways, wind farms, waste management projects, and; on the real estate elements of a number of NPL portfolios.

Working with its colleagues across the firm, Lambadarios also has extensive experience in real estate finance, both in relation to the regulatory framework governing REIC’s and the financing of hospitality development, repositioning and refurbishing projects.

With property transactions in Greece following a notarial process and requiring notarial deeds, having two notaries within the team means that the firm is very well positioned to deliver an efficient, end-to-end real estate service to clients, with compliance hard-wired from the beginning.

Alongside major domestic and international corporate clients, the firm's client base includes real estate funds, private investors and construction companies.

The firm provides expert advice on:

• sale and purchase of real estate assets
• due diligence on the acquisition of assets
• ownership structures including horizontal and vertical property ownership
• financing
• lease agreements
• sale and leaseback agreements
• zoning issues
• obtaining clearances from forestry and archaeological authorities
• working with experts to obtain permits and regulatory approvals
• property development (tourist, residential etc.)
• construction
• tax issues arising in the context of real estate transactions

Tax:
The firm's rapidly expanding Tax practice provides expert advice to domestic and internationally based companies, families and individuals on the tax implications of their business and investment activities in Greece. From identifying the most tax-efficient structures for major corporate transactions to launching new services in Greece and supporting clients in disputes with the Greek tax authorities, the firm helps clients to understand and minimise their liabilities while remaining compliant and ethical.

Tax is one of the most specialised and fastest changing areas of law, acutely relevant both to businesses and individuals, and touching on all aspects of clients’ activities. The firm's specialist Tax practice provides support and advice to clients as a standalone service and also in support of their engagement with other practices within the firm, particularly M&A, Banking & Finance, Project Finance and Employment.

As a specialist tax consultancy, the firm advises individuals, families and companies on the tax aspects of their day-to-day activities, from the treatment of amortisations or launching new services in Greece to executive and employee remuneration and disputes with the tax authorities – including representing them in filing actions with the appropriate Courts – and wealth planning and succession. The firm is accustomed to representing individuals and legal entities before the Administration and Administrative Courts.

As part of a multi-disciplinary team, its tax experts provide transactional support to corporate clients, including financial institutions and investment funds, on the planning, structure and execution of both inbound and outbound investments and on mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and insolvencies and privatisations. The firm also advises clients on the tax implications of real estate ownership and other assets, and the direct and indirect taxation – including VAT – implications of local and cross-border transactions and financing techniques.

In many instances, tax legislation lags behind the curve of business activity and innovation. The firm aims to provide practical solutions that anticipate the direction of evolving tax law and reflect practices adopted in other jurisdictions.

The Tax practice is headed by Smaro Anagnostou, an internationally respected tax expert and former head of PwC’s tax-legal services department.

The firm advises clients in a wide range of matters, including:

• inbound and outbound investments
• mergers and acquisitions, restructuring and insolvencies, privatisations
• cross border restructurings and tax incentive legislation
• real estate/ asset acquisition, holding and disposal
• local and cross-border transactions, financing techniques, and NPLs
• inheritance, wealth and succession planning, protection of assets, co-ownership and transfer of assets
• executive and employee remuneration and benefit schemes
• tax compliance, dispute resolution and tax litigation