Catégorie: Practices

Our Restructuring team advises and litigates on all issues relating to the restructuring, safeguarding, acquisition and sale of distressed SMEs and mid-sized companies.

 

Thanks to our multidisciplinary approach, we work closely with the firm’s other departments (corporate and M&A law, financing law, labor law, intellectual property law, real estate/commercial leases, competition law, public law and tax law) to offer our clients comprehensive support at every stage of their corporate restructuring operations.

 

We work with French and international companies in a wide range of sectors, including luxury goods, industry, technology, energy and finance. As a result, we are accustomed to guiding our foreign clients through the specificities of restructuring in a French context.

 

In particular, our specialized restructuring lawyers can assist and advise you in the following areas

• Preventing business difficulties (safeguard, conciliation, etc.);
• Financial, industrial or social restructuring operations;
• Crisis litigation;
• Insolvency proceedings (safeguard, reorganization, liquidation, etc.)
• Distressed M&A operations.

Our team is involved in all stages of your digital projects.

Our team has developed a strong expertise in IT, telecommunications and digital technology law and is particularly involved in legal engineering, drafting, auditing and negotiating all types of contracts (contracts for the development of IT solutions), contracts for the deployment of IT or telecommunications networks, SaaS contracts, ERP integration, maintenance, facilities management, outsourcing operations, blockchain, software licence contracts, databases, cloud computing, etc.) as well as in the context of IT disputes (failure of IT projects, software counterfeiting, cybersecurity, etc.).

We also assist our clients in the development of all their activities on the Internet (e-commerce, referencing on marketplaces, online games, implementation of payment methods, legal audit of websites, liability issues, regulations applicable to the web and social networks, domain name conflicts, defence of e-reputation, digital marketing…).

Our team is involved in the protection of personal data and assists its clients in complying with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) as well as in the contractual management of personal data processing, particularly in a cross-border context.

As such, we advise both a clientele of professionals in these industries (telecom operators, software solution publishers, technological hardware manufacturers, tech start-ups, etc.), and a clientele of user companies.

Trained in the techniques and ethical tools of mediation, our team regularly intervenes in the context of mediations as accompanying lawyers.

 

Véronique Dahan also practises mediation as a mediator and is a CMAP graduate.

 

Mediation is an amicable, confidential, rapid and cost-effective dispute resolution process.

 

It is an alternative to litigation and can be set up if the parties so wish, in all conflict situations and at any time of the dispute (before, during or after).

 

The mediator, a neutral, independent and impartial third party, is appointed by the parties, assisted by their lawyers, to help them find “their” solution to the dispute between them.

Our team offers a comprehensive range of intellectual property law services, covering trademarks and domain names, designs and models, copyright, software, databases, patents and related issues of image rights and unfair competition/parasitism.
We advise and litigate for clients in all sectors:

 

• Implementing strategies to protect intangible assets and innovation, particularly in relation to artificial intelligence (prior art searches, filing formalities, opposition procedures, managing rights portfolios, setting up monitoring systems);
• Drafting and negotiating all contracts relating to intellectual property (licences, assignments, franchises, coexistence agreements, transfer of know-how, R&D, co-ownership agreements, pledges, trusts, NFTs, metaverse, etc.).
• Defending our clients in pre-litigation (infringement seizures), infringement litigation (in particular in collaboration with customs authorities), trademark revocation, software piracy, emergency measures, image rights and cybersquatting.
• Drafting and filing applications for customs action, assistance with customs detentions and product destruction.
• Valuing and auditing portfolios of intellectual property rights.

Finally, having been seconded to our clients’ legal departments, our team has a pragmatic view of the issues at stake, with a resolutely business-oriented approach.

Involved in our clients’ strategic organizational or reorganisation operations, we support them, both upstream in their strategic thinking phase and in the structuring and then implementation of their projects, thanks to our transversal and global approach (optimization of the operational, human, accounting, financial and administrative organization).

We advise on the development and coordination of the restructuring plan to secure its successful completion, by providing an in-depth analysis of the planned operation and by drafting the legal documentation required for its implementation (structure, legal and tax impact memos,etc.).

We also advise and assist our clients in the social aspects of their reorganisation operations to define the legal framework (company transfers, workforce reductions, etc.), prepare the consultation/negotiation phases of employee representatives (prior audit, economic note, PDV, RCC, PSE, search for buyers, creation of dedicated teams including consulting firms specialised in payroll, reclassification, revitalisation and/or communication), support consultations/negotiations, and the implementation of decided reorganisation measures.

We provide a solution adapted to each operation according to its specificities in terms of governance, anticipation of exits, possible blocking situations and their management.

Always looking for the right balance, we advise on the organisation of relations between partners and managers and establish the necessary documentation for the implementation and sustainability of projects.

We assist our clients on the structuring, creation, documentation and distribution of investment funds, whether they are regulated or non-regulated, open or closed, French or foreign, established in France, in Europe or offshore.

Our team advises on complex cross-border transactions, and on projects covering a wide range of asset classes – private equity, debts and mezzanine, real estate in a variety of formats, miscellaneous property, complex financial instruments, etc. – requiring specific legal, regulatory and tax expertise.

Also advising institutional investors and asset managers on all aspects of financial regulation, as well as on their primary or secondary investment transactions in funds or portfolios of equity or assets.

We act in lobbying and financial regulatory litigation and on projects covering various asset classes requiring legal, specific regulatory and tax expertise..

The Tax department acts in all areas of domestic and international tax law, encompassing both advisory and litigation services. Integrating this department into a commercial law firm handling all of the issues that a company is faced with not only favours communication with other departments, but also enables a cross-functional approach to cases. Its specifications in terms of quality, communication, receptiveness and responsiveness place this department close to both the strategic and day-to-day tax concerns of its clients.

 

The department acts or groups of companies, SMEs, Private Equity investment funds, financial institutions, employers and company directors, large estates, on all tax-related issues such as the tax structuring of domestic or cross-border transactions (mergers-acquisitions, company sales, LBO, etc.), acquisition and re-structuring audits, tax audits, management and optimisation of international flows, applications for tax accreditation and advance rulings, criminal tax law, transactions involving the management and transmission of individual estates (wealth tax, gift duty, inheritance, real estate investment), incentive packages for directors and employees (stock options, management packages), the consequences for employees of secondment / expatriation / returning home.

Our mastery of all aspects of public business law and regulated sectors enables us to advise private operators, national public establishments, local authorities, EPCIs and public and semi-public structures on their relations, particularly contractual relations.

 

We advise and litigate in a number of network industries, with a particular focus on energy, public transport and electronic communications.

 

On a daily basis, the team deals with issues relating to public procurement, public domaniality, local authority financing, town planning regulations and state aid law.

The Competition department advises French and international companies on all aspects of French and European competition law, whether it is on the subject of merger control, cartels, abuse of a dominant position or State aid.

 

It also advises on questions of Distribution Law, Consumer Law and Regulatory issues. The department represents the Firm’s clients in disputes before the competition authorities and the French and European courts. It also assists companies and investment funds in obtaining authorisation for mergers submitted to French or European competition authorities, and to other jurisdictions around the world. At the same time, the department advises clients on issues involving distribution law, consumer law and European law (internal market, regulation).