Baker McKenzie LLP

Sebastian Schwiddessen is a counsel and a member of Baker McKenzie's TMT Practice in Berlin. Sebastian has been working in the entertainment and video games industry for over 20 years. At the age of 21 he founded his own media news related business and web portal where he oversaw up to 50 content creators and was responsible for content creation, data protection, advertisement and regulatory matters. After joining Baker McKenzie in 2014, he sold his business to fully focus on his career as a legal advisor in the media and IT sector. Sebastian studied law in Berlin and Australia, where he specialized in platform, media and IT matters. During his time as a law clerk he worked for two international law firms, one of them specialized in entertainment law.

Due to his experience in the fields, Sebastian is responsible for most media and platform related matters in Germany and regularly coordinates global projects for clients. He is one of Baker McKenzie's EMEA key contacts for interactive entertainment clients and is also part of the firm's global working group for interactive entertainment. Sebastian maintains good contacts to a number of regulators in Germany, where he has been invited several times to speak as legal expert on regulatory and other matters. Sebastian is Baker McKenzie’s designated contact for the GAME association in Germany and regularly visits video game industry events such as the Gamescom, VGBA Law Summit and the Games Industry Law Summit.

Sebastian’s clients range from various platform providers over market leading video gaming, film, video on demand and entertainment companies to indie publishers. Sebastian is well-known as an advisor in the video games and entertainment sector. He also regularly advises a wide range of leading social media companies and video-sharing platforms on regulatory and copyright related matters.

Sebastian's practice focuses on all matters of platform, media and IT law such as platform liability matters, the EU Copyright Directive, media related youth protection and criminal laws, advertisement regulation, hate speech laws, data protection law, copyright law, gambling laws, eCommerce, app commerce, contract law, film taxes, etc.

Sebastian also regularly advises on the media and IT aspects of M&A activities and was involved in several entertainment industry related M&A transactions.