Regulatory experience

Public procurement

We advise both buyers (public bodies and utilities, private and public) and sellers (companies or professional firms doing business with these customers or clients), trade associations and governments in all areas of European, member state and international public procurement law.

Our lawyers advise on a wide variety of issues ranging from procurement structuring of transactions to establishing procurement compliance programmes. We also represent our clients in contentious proceedings before the national and European courts, as well as the Commission and national regulators. In particular, we advise:

• purchasers and suppliers on the applicability of European, member state and international procurement law;
• bidders on participating in the award procedures for public works, supplies and services contracts;
• contracting authorities on preparing and implementing public tenders and implementing detailed procurement structures;
• contracting authorities and bidders in court proceedings relating to public tenders and in other contentious proceedings concerning breaches of public procurement law; and
• governments on the conclusion of international agreements between the European Community and third countries to open up public procurement markets.

Media and telecommunications

Our media and telecommunications work has an excellent reputation and we have been actively involved in telecommunications law matters ever since the first move towards liberalisation of markets. Our client base includes incumbents and new entrants in the domestic and international mobile and fixed network markets, service providers, retailers and resellers, broadcasters, producers and distributors of radio and television programmes, new content providers, internet start-ups, hard and software companies, investors and banks engaged in these industries.

Our advice covers a wide range of licensing issues, including allocation of UMTS and WLL-frequencies, proceedings before the national regulatory authorities against incumbents, particularly on interconnection and rates issues, and contractual issues of our clients' day-to-day business. Our specialists were responsible for instituting landmark proceedings at the national regulators of the different EU members states regarding interconnection tariffs and enforcing unbundled access to the facilities of the incumbents in court.

We have substantial experience in the granting of licences, the supervision of broadcasting events, the introduction of new technologies and the legal problems stemming from the rapidly accelerating convergence of media and network technologies, among other things.

We also represent clients and trade associations on the many planning and environmental challenges presented by network roll-out programmes across Europe.

Privatisation and financing

Our track record in advising on privatisations in the early years has given us the experience to offer specialist advice on the new spate of privatisations taking place now and in the past few years. We advise on the development of new privatisation models (including public finance initiatives), the structuring of privatisations and the progress of partially or fully privatised enterprises towards operation in the marketplace. Our clients include private investors, public enterprises and their holding companies.

Our practice has an excellent reputation for its regulatory work, which includes advising clients on complex privatisations of state-owned enterprises, such as public-sector credit institutions, public utility companies and airports. We advise many different clients across all sectors of the economy, for example private investors, financial institutions, enterprises that are being privatised and public institutional shareholders of those enterprises, on matters such as:

• water, wastewater, waste - privatisation of municipal, regional or national multi-utility enterprises in domestic and international markets;
• energy (electricity, gas, heat) - privatisation of municipal energy providers as well as regional or national energy suppliers;
• airports - privatisation of airports (eg Berlin-Brandenburg International, Hamburg, Hannover and Dusseldorf);
• transport - advice on private finance of roads, tunnels and bridges as well as a road tax on lorries;
• Landesbank privatisations: advice on restructuring and partial privatisation of the public Landesbanken; and
• hospitals - advice on transition into private law entities and all related corporate, employment and public law issues.

Environment, planning and other regulatory areas are central issues in negotiations, as are aspects of company, financial and public institutional law, economic activities of public authorities, charges, public dues and prices, and public property.

To achieve a seamless service our specialists co-operate closely with experts from other fields including our corporate, finance, competition and procurement lawyers throughout Europe.

Healthcare

We advise numerous enterprises and associations on pharmaceutical, medicines and medical products. We represent our clients in medicine licensing procedures, provide ongoing expert and forensic assistance (including advice on constitutional complaints), advise on issues relating to state-run health care systems and assist our clients with civil and criminal liability cases involving medicine law.

Our clients include government departments to whom we provide advice on drafting legislation covering medicine-related product liability as well as advice on various hospital privatisations and reorganisations.

Our specialists work closely with the firm's competition, antitrust and civil law lawyers, to provide a seamless service to our clients.

Aviation law

We have obtained particular expertise in aviation law from advising financial institutions and related companies on a wide range of issues, including financing and licensing aircraft, allocating slots, issuing operating licences, airport planning, permits for terminals, airport charges, ground-handling, airport development schemes and noise regulations for night flights at various airports.

We represent airlines and other companies in liability cases and we have worked on a significant number of major airport privatisations in Germany and other countries.

Constitutional law

We represent clients before the European Commission, constitutional and administrative courts, the European Court of Human Rights, European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.

We provide expert opinions on legislative and regulatory bills, issues of government law and fundamental rights at the European and domestic level. Our clients are primarily private enterprises, but also include governments, ministries, regional and local authorities and public-sector companies.

Product liability

We have extensive international experience in conventional product liability as well as risk and crisis management and all aspects of product regulation.

The practice includes some of the most significant domestic and European product liability cases across a wide number of industry sectors: tobacco, alcoholic beverages, aircraft engineering, supermarket retail, blood products, chemicals and chemical packaging, cosmetics, food processing, domestic appliances, agricultural processing, motor vehicles, fire-arms, pharmaceuticals and railway operations. We have significantly expanded the amount of crisis management work that we have been doing, not only in an advisory capacity, but also in the field following product scares.

Energy law

We have particular expertise in energy management issues and represent a wide range of energy supply companies, including nuclear companies, in matters of supply contracts, disputes (in particular, arbitration) as well as antitrust law and public law.

In the public sector, we are focusing on regulations governing energy facilities and energy supply. We advise our clients in all stages of permit procedures, help them avert subsequent orders affecting operations, and provide services for closing-down power stations.

Health and safety

Although we are able to handle large and complex cases, one of our priorities is to provide our clients with a full service in the health and safety field. We are committed to giving competitively priced advice and representation in routine or small scale matters.

Prosecutions for breaches of health and safety regulations are becoming more frequent across Europe, with tougher sanctions being imposed and greater publicity from an ever vigilant press. We have recently defended our clients successfully in a number of health and safety criminal prosecutions, working closely with them to fully investigate incidents which occurred, briefing their employees prior to interviews with enforcing authorities and handling court related matters on a daily basis.

High-growth markets

Reducing the risk of investing in high-growth markets.

Our low carbon energy team

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News

Freshfields elects seventeen to counsel role View

G20 anti-bribery inconsistencies raise challenges and costs for international businesses View

Briefings

Neues Genehmigungsregime für Offshore-Windparks  View

EU-Staatsschuldenkrise  View

A double whammy for petrochemical firms: the impact of the 2013 emissions trading rules

Paul Bowden, partner responsible for the carbon economy team, sets out what companies can do now, and how to make sure they are ready for 2013. Watch

A summary of what the proposals for the third phase of the EU emissions trading scheme will mean for EU petrochemical companies. View

Awards

Regulatory team of the year - JUVE Awards (2009)

Dispute resolution law firm of the year - JUVE Awards (2008)

View all awards