Dr. Florian Mahler

Closure of Clifford Chance Moscow Office Today we announce that we will be ceasing our operations in Russia with effect from 31 May. Subject to receiving client agreements, we will be transferring existing Russian client work to a new, independent law firm called Bortkevicha & Partners, which will be based in Moscow and headed up by Vika Bortkevicha, currently the Office Managing Partner of our existing Moscow Office. We expect the new firm to be operational from 1 May and, subject to receiving client agreements, we expect to be transferring Russian work to this newly created independent law firm during May, after which period the operations of our existing Moscow Office will cease with effect from 31 May. Torsten Syrbe, one of the partners from our former Moscow Office will move to Dusseldorf, along with a small team of lawyers from the Moscow Office. This team will continue their anti-trust and pharmaceutical practices and become integrated into the Clifford Chance global network. We have also been exploring a number of opportunities to relocate team members from the Moscow team to Clifford Chance Offices across Europe. We expect to be able to relocate a small number of the existing Moscow Office team via these arrangements in the coming weeks. These future arrangements mean that we do not expect that all members of the existing Moscow team will leave Clifford Chance and move to the new firm or have the opportunity to relocate. Unfortunately, we therefore anticipate that a small number of the existing Moscow team will be made redundant as a result of these changes. We are working closely with those who are impacted to ensure that we can offer them all the support they need. While we have been considering future options with our colleagues in Moscow, our priority has been to focus on the safety and wellbeing of our colleagues during this difficult time and on ensuring the winding down of our services is consistent with our legal and professional responsibilities to our clients and our responsible business principles and values.

Apr 29

2 min

A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton are advising on French private equity firm Wendel's sale of its majority stake in Dutch coatings specialist Stahl Group to German chemicals maker Henkel. A&0 Shearman’s Amsterdam-based corporate partner Charles Honee and Paris-based M&A and private equity partner Marc Castagnede are advising longtime client Wendel, the firm said on LinkedIn. The deal has an enterprise value of around €2.1 billion ($2.5 billion). Sébastien Metzger is the general counsel for M&A and finance at Wendel, which is listed on Euronext Paris. DAX-listed Henkel is getting advice from Clifford Chance infrastructure, private equity and M&A partners Anselm Raddatz, in Düsseldorf, and Jeroen Thijssen, based in Amsterdam, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction. Cologne-based Cleary Gottlieb partner Julian Sanner is advising Henkel on antitrust aspects of the deal. Düsseldorf-headquartered Henkel, which, among other things, makes adhesives and coatings brand Loctite and laundry detergent Persil, said in a statement that its acquisition of Stahl’s specialty coatings for flexible materials gives it a “highly complementary product portfolio.” Wendel said the sale excludes its stake in Muno, a Belgian wet-end leather production chemicals business. Stahl employs around 1,700 employees and has sales of around €725 million. The transaction is subject to conditions, including mandatory consultation processes, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Stahl, Wendel and Cleary were contacted for comment. Henkel and Clifford Chance declined to comment. In another coatings industry deal, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Wakkie+Perrick, Davis Polk & Wardwell, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore were among firms advising Amsterdam-based Akzo Nobel NV and Philadelphia-based Axalta Coating Systems on a merger agreement to create a global coatings company valued at around $25 billion.

Feb 10

1 min

Latham & Watkins LLP has advised European private equity firm Trilantic Europe on the ac-quisition of a significant stake in Smile Eyes Group as well as on the financing of the transac-tion. The investment is structured as a partnership between Trilantic Europe, the two founders of Smile Eyes Dres. Wiltfang and Bechmann and the management team, with the vision to implement a buy-and-build strategy in the German ophthalmology market. The financial de-tails of this transaction were not disclosed. Smile Eyes is a leading player in the German ophthalmology market with headquarters in Munich. The company stands for eye laser and lens surgery at the highest medical level and has a comprehensive service offering in the field of ophthalmology in various metropolitan regions in Germany. Trilantic Europe is a pan-European private equity firm focusing on mid-market transactions in Europe. Trilantic Europe’s sectors of focus are healthcare, consumer & leisure, industrials, TMT, and business services. The Latham M&A team was led by Hamburg private equity partner Nils Röver. Advice on private equity matters was also provided by Frankfurt private equity partner Susanne Decker with Hamburg private equity associates Malte Ingwersen, Jacob Ahme, Philipp Thomssen, Maximilian Berenbrok, Lorenz Koffka, Jana Maué. On corporate/healthcare matters by Hamburg partner Christoph Engeler; on corporate/IP matters by Frankfurt partner Susan Kempe-Müller and associate Pia Sophie Sösemann; on antitrust matters by Hamburg coun-sel Jana Dammann de Chapto and Frankfurt associate Judith Jacop; on tax matters by part-ner Stefan Süß and Hamburg associate Verena Seevers; on employment matters by Munich partner Tobias Leder with associate Kristina Steckermeier and on data privacy matters by Frankfurt associates Wolf-Tassilo Böhm and Valentino Halim. Advice on finance matters was provided by Munich partner Thomas Weitkamp and associate Philipp Guggeis with Munich paralegal Anne Kurschewitz and Frankfurt paralegal Christoph Rapp.~~

Jul 30

1 min

White & Case, Clifford Chance, Hengeler Mueller and other European firms are advising on two European cross-border deals in the nutrition and renewable energy sectors with a combined value of $3 billion. Clifford Chance is advising dsm-firmenich, a Swiss-Dutch chemicals company, on its agreement with CVC Capital Partners to divest its Animal Nutrition & Health (ANH) business for an enterprise value of about €2.2 billion ($2.6 billion). The deal will see dsm-firmenich retain a 20% equity stake in the divested ANH companies in partnership with White & Case client CVC. Clifford Chance’s Amsterdam team, led by corporate M&A partners Gregory Crookes and Stephanie Horowitz, includes M&A partner Ernst van der Touw and co-head of the global IP group Claudia Milbradt. This transaction follows the sale of dsm-firmenich’s stake in Feed Enzymes Alliance to Novonesis for €1.5 billion in 2025, which Clifford also advised on. Brussels-based White & Case partner Carlo Meert co-led his deal team, which includes London partners Ben von Maur and Joshua Crawley, and Frankfurt’s Stefan Koch and Carola Glasauer. The firm has supported CVC on other cross-border mandates, including during last year’s €1 billion joint investment with Therme Group. CIP to Acquire Ørsted’s European Arm In a second deal announced this week, Danish fund Copenhagen Investment Partners (CIP) agreed to acquire Ørsted’s European onshore business, which includes onshore wind, solar PV, and battery energy storage systems, in a transaction valued at more than €1.4 billion ($1.7 billion). Denmark’s Kromann Reumert, led by Copenhagen's Anders Stubbe Arndal and Nicolai Helms, is advising Ørsted while Hengeler Mueller is counseling Ørsted on German aspects of the transaction. Hengeler’s team is led by Frankfurt M&A partners Sebastian Schneider and Marika Öry, with energy, regulatory, and competition/FDI advice from Düsseldorf partner Jörg Meinzenbach. Hengeler has worked with Ørsted for 25 years, making it one of the firm’s core clients in renewables. The firm has also advised on projects beyond Germany, including the €7 billion Baltica 2 offshore wind project between Denmark and Poland in 2025. Danish law firm Accura, meanwhile, is advising CIP, led by partners Louise Hilligsoe Norgaard and Thomas Weincke.

Feb 12

2 min

Stacy Frazier Clifford Chance LLP has hired UnitedHealth Group Inc.'s former deputy general counsel, who is joining the Washington, D.C., team to work on antitrust issues related to transitions, litigation and compliance, the firm announced Monday. Stacy Frazier has joined Clifford Chance as a partner, where she'll combine her in-house experience managing a broad portfolio of antitrust issues with her background in private practice. She'll work on completion law matters and consumer protection cases, with a particular focus on transactional work and helping senior executives understand regulations. Frazier has previously secured global clearance for transactions across various industries and has worked in the aerospace and the energy sectors, with medical devices, and on healthcare matters. A Harvard Law School graduate, Frazier started her legal career as a WilmerHale counsel, her LinkedIn profile says. She joined General Electric as an executive counsel, working on completion law and policy, and spent more than 6.5 years there before joining UnitedHealth Group in 2023. In an interview with Law360 Pulse on Monday, Frazier said she loved working as an in-house attorney but felt she was ready to take her experience and leverage it for clients in her new role. "It was just trying to take that next step into more than just a single company, a single industry, and find somewhere where I could be a little bit broader in my practice than at a single company," Frazier said. Frazier said moving to General Electric after her role in private practice was one of her introductions to working with a variety of industries, an opportunity to "dabble in some of the industries that are most important to American consumers," like healthcare devices, energy matters and aviation. "And then I really was fascinated by our healthcare system, which is incredibly complex, as I think everybody knows," she said. "And the opportunity to deep dive into that was fascinating to me. And so again, it was this focus on industries and brands that are common and known to people and important to people and hit their pocketbooks that I really liked focusing on." Frazier added: "And so the transition [to] Clifford Chance incorporates those different industries but also really allows me to also look at some new ones." Agencies like the Federal Trade Commission are focusing more on the oversight of healthcare companies, and the company Frazier is departing, UnitedHealth Group, recently had a deal to buy Amedisys Inc. come under scrutiny. She said she's looking to bring in her skills helping executives understand "incredibly complicated doctrine and distill it into bite-sized concepts." "You might have an incredibly important meeting coming up, or an important issue, and the only chance you get to brief an executive is 15 seconds outside their office, from one meeting to another," Frazier said. "And I think that that's the way our world is working now, and that's what I really think that I can bring to Clifford Chance … building the actionable, strategic advice that companies can actually act on." She added: "It's one thing to know antitrust law, but I think that translation ability is really, really important to actually help companies do business in today's very constantly changing antitrust climate." Marc Besen, the chair of Clifford Chance's global antitrust group, said in a statement that the firm was looking forward to adding Frazier's perspective to the team. "Stacy's broad experience in-house at multiple Fortune 100 companies will be immensely helpful for clients looking to align strategies both globally and in the U.S., enabling them to structure and implement transactions with foresight, confidence and alignment across jurisdictions," Besen said. Leigh Oliver, the head of the firm's U.S. antitrust practice and co-chair of the healthcare and life sciences sector, told Law360 Pulse in an email Monday that Frazier's experience "in a large law firm then in-house with GE and UnitedHealth Group is highly valuable to our clients." "At Clifford Chance, we listen to our clients and create advantage for them through delivering practical advice based on deep experience," Oliver said. "Adding Stacy to our global antitrust team further strengthens our offering."

Mar 2

3 min