Main focus – Companies
Companies
Advice on
- Investments and their financing, e.g. real estate investments;
- Advice on restructurings such as the outsourcing of business units, the organization of business transfers and the restructuring of bank loans.
- Start-ups: advising payment and financial service providers on compliance with regulatory requirements and on applying for PSD2 licenses from BaFin;
- Advising corporate bodies and members of corporate bodies on the permissibility of corporate law measures, on disputes and on defending or asserting claims for damages.
Real Estate and Tenancy Law
Are you planning to acquire and finance commercial real estate? You want to rent or lease a commercial property? Take advantage of my many years of experience as a bank lawyer at real estate banks and my focus on large-volume real estate financing! I support you in the review of loan agreements, financial covenants, the review of loan collateral required by the bank. I advise you on the legally sound drafting of commercial leases so that they comply with the written form requirement and other legal standards.
Banking Law and Financing
Corporate Borrowers: Are you wondering whether your bank is allowed to increase the interest on your loan right now, demand early repayment penalties, require additional loan collateral from you or even cancel a loan? I support you in analyzing your bank loans, their collateralization and debt restructuring. In doing so, I put my many years of experience as a bank lawyer for real estate banks at your disposal. I know how banks “tick” and how they proceed!
Banks: You are in the process of restructuring, do not want to hire additional staff at the moment and need support for your legal department? I provide you with my more than 20 years of experience as an in-house lawyer of several credit institutions in Germany and abroad as a “freelancer”: from account management, banking regulatory issues, outsourcing, payment transaction law and PSD2 to IT projects, spin-offs and large-volume structured financing.
IT Law
You want to (partially) outsource your IT or switch to “Software as a Service” (SaaS) and Cloud computing? Are you planning to digitize your accounting or payment transactions or outsource your data storage to third-party data centers? Or you intend to purchase new hardware and software and set up an IT project for implementation? I support you in reviewing contracts, licenses, the appropriateness of general terms and conditions and ensure that legal requirements for data storage and data security are met.
Company Restructuring
Are you looking to restructure your business, reducing costs and reorganizing bank debt? Are you planning to regroup or outsource departments and business units, and transfer employment relationships across companies? Perhaps you want to merge companies or transfer or sell business units to service providers?
In my more than 20 years of experience as a lawyer for financial institutions, I have assisted in many restructurings: the organization and implementation of business transfers; the spin-off and placement of business units (outsourcing); the rescheduling of bank loans and reorganization of loan collateral; the closure of branches in Germany and abroad.
In this process, I support you in analyzing your loans and loan collateral. And I will provide you with expert information on whether an early repayment penalty applies in the case of debt restructuring, whether the bank is allowed to demand further loan collateral, partial repayment or increase loan interest rates at a certain point in time.
Payment and Financial Service Providers / PSD2 Licenses
You have so far provided payment services such as account information services (AIS), payment initiation services (PIS) or money remittance using a bank or a licensed payment service provider (“White Label”, “RegShield”) and would now like to apply for a regulatory license yourself with the German financial supervisory authority BaFin? I can support you in the permit application process and also advise you on the ongoing supervision by the relevant authorities (BaFin and Deutsche Bundesbank). I have already successfully conducted several such permit application procedures for payment service providers, prepared the permit application and helped the applicants to meet the regulatory requirements as leanly and promptly as possible: Implementing an Internal Control System, an Internal Audit, defining the capital requirements, setting up the reporting to the regulator, etc. Take advantage of my good working contacts with the responsible departments of BaFin and Bundesbank and the trust I have built up over the years.
Advice to Executive Bodies and Members of Executive Bodies
Are you a member of a board of directors or supervisory board of a stock corporation and need assistance in reviewing and precisely determining your obligations under corporate or supervisory law? Such a need may arise when restructuring the company or group, but also when acquiring or selling a company or in a crisis situation. Or your listed company or a company supervised by the financial supervisory authority has received requests or requirements from the stock exchange and financial supervisory authorities and you are wondering how to react?
Take advantage of my many years of experience as a chief legal counsel, but also as a member of the board of directors and supervisory board of credit institutions, in providing legal advice to corporate bodies and members of corporate bodies. Together with you, I will analyze the situation, work out proposals for structuring the situation and prepare legal opinions. I also advise you on the assertion of claims for damages against former board members and on the defense against unjustified claims against you.