Simmons & Simmons

Benedikt advises on all aspects of asset management, regulated and unregulated funds, private equity, general M&A and corporate law. He focuses on advising both investors and fund sponsors on the structuring and formation of investment funds, including private equity, real estate, infrastructure, mezzanine and hedge funds. His practice covers related tax and regulatory matters in all relevant fund jurisdictions. Benedikt is particularly experienced in accompanying investments of German insurance companies and other regulated investors. He has in-depth knowledge of structuring and implementing fund-of-fund and multiple-tier structures, fund-platforms for indirect investments and tax-efficient structured products.

Christopher Kranz

Christopher is a partner in our Banking & Finance and Restructuring & Special Situations practices. He is the head of the German RSS Practice. He regularly advises lenders, creditors, debtors, directors, investors and shareholders in relation to finance transactions and debt restructurings, often within a cross-border context. His practice covers all areas of finance, restructuring, insolvency and corporate law. Some recent examples include the successful restructurings of Softline AG through the use of a state-of-the-art StaRUG-Proceeding, MagForce AG by way of a distressed M&A transaction combined with a cross-border debt equity swap or the insolvency proceedings over Wirecard AG and Fintyre Group. Christopher has extensive experience in the areas of secured lending, Schuldschein loans, acquisition finance, distressed refinancings and M&A, workouts and all varieties of rescue and insolvency proceedings. In addition, Christopher regularly publishes on insolvency, corporate and finance law with a particular focus on new hybrid proceedings such as the German StaRUG-Scheme, the Dutch Scheme and the UK Scheme of Arrangement/Restructuring Plan.

Daniel Lühmann

Daniel works as a partner in our Frankfurt office and has wide-ranging expertise in the financial services sector with a focus on asset management and investment funds. He advises national and international clients on the regulatory aspects of banking and finance law. Daniel regularly publishes articles and holds presentations on financial services regulation with focus on Sustainable Financing and Environmental Social Governance Investment.

Fritz Lahrtz

Fritz is a European and German Patent attorney. He represents his clients in all fields of intellectual property with an emphasis on patent prosecution and opposition, nullity and infringement proceedings. Specifically, in recent years, he has gained extensive experience in multinational infringement proceedings, where he represents his clients before the German Federal Patent Court, the German infringement courts as well as before the opposition divisions and appeal boards of the European Patent Office. Since he is also responsible for establishing and coordinating the patent strategy of large patent portfolios, he has developed a deep insight into all aspects of patent prosecution. This includes also the provision of validity and infringement opinions. His clients include start-up companies, universities as well as large multinational companies. Due to his scientific education in the fields of immunology and neurobiology, he primarily works in the technical fields of biotechnology, chemistry and pharma, with an emphasis on handling antibody-related cases.

Harald Glander

Harald is involved in transactional, advisory and regulatory work for financial institutions, asset managers and other businesses operating in the financial services sector. He is a capital markets, financial services and investment funds specialist advising on the establishment and distribution of open-ended and closed-ended funds, Master-KVG structures, hedge fund regulation and ETFs. He also advises on all other aspects of capital markets, financial services regulation, for example on derivatives and structured financial instruments, cross-border licences, the registration of EU branches, compliance issues, brokerage and securities trading. Harald has extensive experience in advising on the regulatory aspects of international M&A and outsourcing transactions. Harald regularly publishes articles and holds presentations on financial services regulation in particular with a focus on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and sustainable finance. He is an author in two commentaries on the German investment law (KAGB).

Jochen Kindermann

Jochen has been advising financial institutions in relation to regulatory work for more than ten years, in particular with regard to compliance matters. Furthermore, he has gained extensive experience in asset management. Jochen specialises in cross-border activities of regulated entities, in particular the promotion of financial instruments. As a former compliance officer and alumnus of the official brokers’ training programme he has gained considerable insight into the day-to-day business of banking institutions. Jochen has set up fund structures inside and outside Germany and advised asset managers in relation to their buy-side and sell-side activities. Jochen Kindermann’s legal expertise and guidance has been invaluable to the creation and design of the product CryptoReviewer.

Peter Meyer

Peter has specialised in intellectual property law and competition law matters for more than 20 years. His expertise covers all contentious and non-contentious issues of intellectual property and antitrust law. Peter's particular focus is on international and national patent litigation, and advising on antitrust law questions at the interface with IP rights. Peter's clients are mainly from the life sciences and TMT sectors. They include a major European life sciences company, a US medical device manufacturer as well as Asian and US electronics, telecom and IT companies. Peter is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023.

Sabrina Schwiebert

Sabrina specialises in asset management and regulatory law, in particular with regard to private equity funds, real estate funds and debt funds. She advises a wide range of financial actors like regulated investors, insurance companies and asset managers. Sabrina has an extensive knowledge with investments of German insurance companies and other regulated investors. She has assisted in structuring and implementing fund-of-fund structures, fund platforms for indirect investments and tax efficient structured products.

Stephanie Nottrott

Stephanie has profound expertise in handling global patent and trademark portfolios. Her clients include small and medium-sized biotech businesses, universities and companies in the pharmaceutical and nanotechnology industry. Stephanie provides qualified advice in the area of patent and trademark law with particular focus on national and international prosecution proceedings as well as the defence and enforcement of protective rights against third parties. In light of her proven scientific expertise in the field of protein-RNA biology, she particularly focuses on the area of life sciences including biochemistry, molecular biology, genetic engineering and medical devices. Stephanie has long-standing experience in successfully representing clients in opposition and appeal proceedings before the European Patent Office, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office and the European Union Intellectual Property Office. In patent litigation proceedings, she protects clients' interests before the German civil courts in collaboration with our patent litigators. Her work includes freedom-to-operate analysis and validity opinions. Stephanie is a registered representative before the Unified Patent Court (UPC), which became operational on 1 June 2023. In addition she is admitted to practice before the German Patent and Trademark Office, the European Patent Office, the Federal Patent Court, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the European Union Intellectual Property Office.

Thomas Gniadek

Thomas is a partner in our Munich office. His practice focuses on counselling and representation in patent litigation, trade secrets litigation and other tech-related litigation. In particular, his expertise comprises litigating patents in the fields of telecommunications, video, audio and voice coding, IT, hardware and software, consumer electronics, automotive, mechanics, 3D printing, metal manufacturing, medical devices as well as biotech; regularly including standard essential patents (SEP). Further, Thomas advises on technology related know-how and trade secrets protection. He gives advice on the licensing of patents and IP rights, on employee inventions law and on technology related unfair competition and anti-trust law (SEP/FRAND). He helps clients manage risks and arriving at practical solutions without involving the courts. Also, Thomas has a wealth of experience in providing comprehensive freedom-to-operate (FTO) analyses and representing clients in complex out-of-court negotiation scenarios.

Thomas Scharfenberg

Thomas specialises in debt capital markets law and (retail) structured products. He particularly advises banks but also corporates in connection with capital markets transactions. Thomas is a partner in our Frankfurt office and has extensive experience, inter alia, in advising on structured notes, warrants and certificates, as well as on debt issuance programmes, stand-alone bonds, liability management transactions, German law governed registered notes (Namensschuldverschreibungen) and assignable loan agreements (Schuldscheindarlehen). Thomas is also an expert in environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and sustainable finance.

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