Bird & Bird — Germany

About

- Bird & Bird > Dusseldorf - Bird & Bird > Frankfurt - Bird & Bird > Hamburg - Bird & Bird > Munich The firm: Bird & Bird is an international law firm, with a long-established reputation for having a rare and invaluable grasp of strategic commercial issues. The firm combines exceptional legal expertise with deep industry knowledge and refreshingly creative thinking, to help clients operating at the forefront of their industries to achieve their commercial goals. Bird & Bird has over 1,400 lawyers and legal practitioners with broad advisory transactional and contentious capability, with a particular focus on key industry sectors. The firm has an extensive international reach with 32 offices across Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, offering a seamless, cross-border service between locations and sector and practice groups. In Germany, Bird & Bird has offices in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich. From these offices it provides a full range of legal services, including intellectual property (patents, trade marks, designs and copyright), corporate/M&A, commercial, banking and finance, ata protection, dispute resolution, employment, competition and EU, outsourcing, regulatory and administrative, tax, privacy and data protection and real estate. Areas of practice: Underpinned by deep client and industry knowledge, the firm’s key sectors include: Automotive: advising on all stages of a life cycle of a motor vehicle, from initial design, to sales and distribution, through to disposals. Aviation, aerospace, defence and security: advising on asset management and financing, civil aviation matters, including airlines, regulatory and competition issues, and aerospace and defence, including PPP/PFI and product liability. Energy and utilities: advising large multinationals, investors, project companies and large energy consumers on electricity generation, energy trading, renewable energy, cleantech and climate change, and upstream oil and gas. Financial services: advising global clients in the financial services sector, such as global retail and investment banks, investors and hedge funds, on transactions, regulatory issues, commercial contracts and dispute resolution. Life sciences and healthcare: advising clients in biotechnology, bioinformatics and pharmaceutical companies on licensing and drug development agreements, R&D collaboration, IP acquisitions and joint ventures. Media and entertainment and sports: advising clients from across the media spectrum on a wide range of issues, including exploitation across all forms of digital media and emerging areas, such as user-generated content exploitation; advising clients such as national and international sports governing bodies, event organisers and sponsors on issues including exploitation of commercial rights, brand management, regulatory and disciplinary issues. Retail and consumer: advising retail and consumer-facing clients on all aspects of the sector, from research and development, production and packaging, through to distribution, promotion and retailing. Technology and communications: advising on matters ranging from smaller innovative projects to some of the largest, most complex and ground-breaking transactions and disputes of recent years. Its team includes lawyers with a particular focus on communications, devices and components, digital tech and eCommerce, and software and services as well as a number of more specialist industries including data centres, postal and satellites. ### Languages - Chinese - English - French - German - Polish - Russian - Spanish - Turkish ### Staffing Figures - 0 Number of lawyers - 180 in this country

Office locations

Practice areas

Lawyers in this office

Anne Federle

Anne is a competition lawyer steering clients through EU and national merger control, cartel and abuse proceedings and providing pragmatic, hands-on competition law advice. She has over 25 years of experience advising and representing clients in all areas of EU and German competition law. Two key areas of Anne’s practice are merger control and cartel investigations. She has been involved in a large number of complex merger control cases before the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office and regularly manages multi-jurisdictional merger control proceedings across the globe. She also represents clients in EU and national cartel and abuse of dominance proceedings, helps them conduct internal investigations to identify and address anti-competitive conduct and supports them in developing effective competition law compliance programmes. When clients seek Anne’s advice on how to conduct certain activities in compliance with competition law, she always tries to put herself in their shoes. Her aim is to help them find a workable solution rather than just offering legal advice. Over the years Anne has developed significant expertise in a number of sectors where technology plays an important role. This includes in particular the automotive industry as well as the electronics and telecommunications sectors. She also has a strong interest in competition law issues around (big) data and works closely with our data protection team on issues at the interface of competition and data protection law. · Competition Law

Heiko Heppner

Heiko Heppner is co-head of the German Dispute Resolution practice group and professor of law concentrating on international arbitration and litigation with a focus on Germany and common law jurisdictions. Heiko has particular experience with defending clients against mass and class securities litigation and special expertise in Banking and Capital Markets litigation, including the liability of credit rating agencies and for the mis-selling of derivatives. Moreover, Heiko represents clients before the European courts in matters of European Banking Regulation. Heiko has advised on litigation and arbitration matters in Germany, the United States, Hong Kong, England and various other jurisdictions. Apart from court proceedings, he has represented clients in International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), German Institution of Arbitration (Deutsche Institution für Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit - DIS), and ad hoc international arbitration proceedings, often regarding issues of Contract or Corporate law. Heiko also gives preemptive advise to help avoid future disputes and draft dispute resolution clauses and regimes. Heiko’s second focus is on cross-border litigation and arbitration in Germany and abroad, often involving issues of common law. His two full legal educations in Germany and the United States offer clients a particular added value in matters that cross the common law/civil law divide. As a New York attorney, Heiko advises on litigation in US courts, including US discovery in Germany and in Germany on commercial litigation involving issues of US law. As an English Barrister and Solicitor Advocate Heiko represents parties in international arbitration proceedings under English law and advises on litigation in England. He is also a lecturer of common law at the University of Bonn. Due to his extensive experience in China, Heiko increasingly acts as a counsel in international arbitration proceedings that involve Chinese parties. Heiko has been lecturing as a professor of international arbitration at Fuzhou University since 2015.