Although our advice is aimed at preventing conflicts, legal disputes in the context of employment law are often unavoidable. FPS represents clients before all German courts and the European Court of Justice. In particular, we represent companies in proceedings concerning the legitimacy of trade union industrial action. Besides collective cases, representation also extends to individual dismissal protection proceedings as well as disputes in the areas of remuneration, the Employee Inventions Act, non-compete clauses and discrimination. We also support our clients in works council hearings and in approval procedures before the Integration Office. In addition, our mediators have considerable experience in out-of-court dispute resolution to avoid court proceedings.

Drawing up employment contracts for managing directors and board members as well as work contracts for employees at individual contract law level is one of our main focal areas in the field of employment law. This particularly includes the structuring of bonus and target agreements as well as other special allowances or employee share schemes (stock options, stock appreciation rights, etc.). In addition, we sit down with our clients to come up with tailored, innovative solutions to make working time models more flexible – by way of part-time contracts, working time accounts or fixed-term contracts, for example – and we are also very experienced in handling the termination of employment relationships, whether through dismissal or termination/settlement agreements, and dealing with the resulting issues regarding severance packages, holiday pay or preclusion periods.

Even in matters concerning corporate law, conflicts are not always avoidable. Accordingly, it goes without saying that we are also on hand to assist our clients when disputes arise involving shareholders, the management and members of the executive or supervisory board. The priority here is on out-of-court dispute resolution. If this is unsuccessful, we also represent our clients in mediation, court and arbitration proceedings. Finally, we also specialise in pursuing and defending claims arising from business purchase agreements as well as enforcing non-compete clauses.

Successful transactions require careful planning and structuring, both in terms of content and time. Our M&A experts not only perform due diligence and draft the contract, but also handle the subsequent contract negotiations and manage the project in the post-closing phase.

We advise domestic and foreign companies on both the buyer and seller side on M&A projects, private equity and venture capital transactions, management buy-ins and buyouts and corporate cooperation projects (joint ventures). Here, we draft and negotiate confidentiality and exclusivity agreements (letters of intent) as well as contracts covering company acquisitions and investment agreements.

In all M&A transactions, we establish a close and trusting working relationship with our clients’ auditors and tax consultants, determine how to optimally structure the transactions for tax purposes and ensure compliance with antitrust requirements.

Due to the tightening of legislation and case law following the financial crisis, the personal liability of managing directors as well as members of executive and supervisory boards has taken on practical significance. Accordingly, we advise our clients on liability matters involving executive bodies in internal and external relationships as well as in the area of D&O insurance. Our clients benefit from our many years of experience in the field of liability law for the liberal professions and from our trusting working relationships with insurers.

Our work particularly includes drafting and negotiating executive board and managing director contracts, advising members of supervisory bodies, advising on co-determination issues and representing clients in and out of court in liability matters.

Succession planning is of crucial importance, especially for medium-sized and family-owned companies. FPS advises domestic and foreign clients on succession arrangements with interdisciplinary teams of lawyers and notaries specialising in corporate, inheritance and tax matters. We solve any such issues in close cooperation with the contact persons at the auditing firm and tax consultancy or other advisors working on behalf of our clients. Together, we devise tailored solutions for our clients when implementing risk prevention measures, drawing up succession arrangements (such as transfers during someone’s lifetime or testamentary arrangements in the event of death, contracts of inheritance, sales scenarios), optimising tax affairs upon succession and executing wills. In addition, we provide representation and mediation in connection with inheritance disputes.

We advise on joint ventures, alliances and minority shareholdings, which are becoming ever more important for international companies from a strategic perspective. In our corporate law practice, we assist clients from various sectors. This may include joint ventures as individual transactions or as part of larger restructuring measures and reorganisation plans for existing companies, the redesign of project-based joint ventures to pool expertise and technologies, exit joint ventures for a phased exit from business areas and the use of joint ventures as a tool for market entry in emerging economies.

Our expertise extends into related areas of law such as regulation, taxation, employment law, commercial law, environmental law and intellectual property. With our network, we offer a coordinated, comprehensive service for cross-border joint ventures.

Our advice addresses problems and pitfalls, including voting rights, regulatory approval procedures, exit strategies, valuation issues and governance risks. Our aim is to achieve results that enable our clients to negotiate business matters with confidence.

The high level of importance accorded to property ownership in Germany requires a large number of neighbour regulations that govern the legal relationships between landowners and play a major role in the approval or modification of construction projects. When it comes to negotiating and concluding neighbourhood agreements that take into account the interests of all parties, our experts have wide-ranging expertise acquired over a number of decades. In many projects, and in particular high-rise building developments in Frankfurt, we have been successfully working in the field of neighbour law for many years.

Within the IP office at FPS, we have set up a dedicated task force focused on combating product piracy. The illegal reproduction and sale of branded goods causes significant revenue losses for brand manufacturers, damages the overall economy and puts jobs at risk. 

Our FPS product piracy task force is proactive in taking action against pirated goods as well as parallel imports and works closely with the relevant authorities such as the public prosecutor’s office, customs forces and the police. We prepare arrests, recover any profits made through piracy and coordinate seizures. Our consulting services include general market observation, especially online, and targeted investigations into individual infringers. We seize counterfeit goods, conduct searches of infringing companies and secure evidence. In the litigation process, we assert claims for injunctive relief, information, damages and destruction.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly important in recent years and is influencing more and more areas of life and the economy. This also gives rise to new legal issues that have to be dealt with by lawyers, courts and legislators, including the protection of AI-generated works, the issue of copyright attribution and any liability issues involving AI-generated content. Adequate legislation is needed to protect intellectual property related to AI, while fostering innovation and creativity. The legal team at FPS provides comprehensive advisory services to help companies deal with the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in the field of intellectual property.

Media law regulates the use, distribution and production of media content such as radio, television, print media and online media. Press law is a part of this and deals with framework conditions of the press, including freedom of the press, editorial independence, personal rights, media liability and the right of reply. FPS advises media companies on legal matters relating to freedom of expression, including advice on media content and legal representation in proceedings involving the right of reply, injunctive relief and compensation for damages. We possess industry knowledge and offer advice on typical media contracts, cross-media collaborations and freelance authors. We also support Internet platforms in the areas of copyright, consumer protection and data protection. In the event of online legal violations, we successfully cooperate with law enforcement agencies.

The metaverse covers 3D virtual environments where people and businesses interact and move around the virtual world with avatars. It unlocks new business opportunities, but lacks a consistent legal framework. FPS helps its clients to overcome these legal challenges. We find legally robust solutions, offer advice on risk prevention and successfully support metaverse projects.

Representing clients in infringement proceedings has always been a key area of expertise at FPS. For decades, notable rights holders have entrusted the judicial assertion of their rights to the experienced FPS lawyers. FPS is often involved in the investigation of infringement cases as well as the inspection and preservation of evidence in advance. We also support our clients in border seizure cases. Representation is provided in all areas of IP law before the relevant courts and agencies.

FPS has been advising medium-sized and larger pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers on advertising issues for a number of years, assessing advertisements, websites, brochures, giveaways and other promotional material, for example, and addressing the associated issues of the admissibility or misleading nature of information featured in scientific statements, among other things, in the light of the Health Services and Products Advertising Act (HWG) and the Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG). In this field, FPS represents manufacturers in out-of-court processes involving competitors and competition associations and especially in disputes before the civil courts.

FPS advises in all areas of IT contract law. Whether clients need support in drafting and negotiating IT project contracts, designing and running outsourcing projects or making use of cloud services – we are on hand to help with our experts. In addition to many years of experience in advising a wide range of industries and companies of all sizes, our team has a real technical affinity and a special degree of creativity. This gives us a good technical understanding of our clients’ concerns and business models and enables us to find the best solution for them. Our services include drafting and negotiating IT project contracts (agile, classic, managed services, new business models), outsourcing contracts, service descriptions, service level agreements and pricing plans, and helping clients to prepare for due diligence processes, vendor conferences and on-site visits. We also oversee project and system integration measures as well as hardware and software maintenance and draft licensing, escrow and distribution agreements.

When it comes to IT tenders, we help contracting authorities to choose the right procedure (known in Germany as VOL/A and VOB/A) and implement it. For example, we sit down with our client to work out the desired performance target, taking into account the usual legal and regulatory frameworks, translate the technical requirements into legal language and help to draft the contract documents (in line with EVB-IT, for example, the supplementary contractual conditions for the procurement of IT services). We are familiar with both sides of the coin, not least because in addition to advising public contracting authorities, we also have many years of expertise in advising national and international bidders in the context of public IT tenders.

In many cases, carefully drawn-up project contracts protect the parties from disputes. Due to the content and complexity of IT projects, however, disputes cannot be completely ruled out. We help our clients to get troubled projects back on track by finding sensible solutions. If necessary, we also support them when asserting their rights (judicially) or defending against claims.

Digitalisation unlocks new opportunities for companies and creates space for future-oriented and scalable business models. Data has become the most valuable currency in the digital world. Data protection law – or now data law – is a separate advisory field at FPS rather than a mere annex to other areas of law. FPS helps companies to devise future-proof and legally compliant data usage concepts so that they can achieve their goals when using new technologies: innovation and data protection – when understood correctly – needn’t contradict one another. The GDPR with its drastic fines has significantly increased the risks for companies. FPS establishes what a company is permitted to do with the data and ensures compliance with data protection requirements in a pragmatic way by setting up a data protection management system, which, among other things, includes records of processing activities, data protection policies, data protection information, deletion and authorisation concepts, data protection impact assessments, processes for dealing with information and deletion requests from data subjects and much more besides. And if penalty proceedings are initiated, we defend our clients’ rights against the supervisory authorities. We also provide external data protection officers for our clients – for data protection from one single source.

While IT security has long been considered a ‘technical’ matter handled solely by a company’s IT department, its legal relevance can no longer be disputed. Alongside buzzwords such as ‘trade secret’, ‘data protection’ or ‘record fine’, the implications of any liability for executives must be taken into account, for example. In order to fully protect a company and its management, a legal assessment of the risks should always be carried out in addition to examining the matter from a technical perspective. FPS devises cybersecurity strategies to protect government agencies as well as business owners and businesses. In the event of an attack, our experts coordinate the immediate action that needs to be taken, getting in touch with their IT security forensic experts, crisis communication agencies, investigative authorities and insurance companies. And we help our clients to defend themselves against claims for damages and administrative fines.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is influencing more and more areas of life and the economy. AI has been a ‘hot topic’ since the advent of ChatGPT. The potential is huge – so the time has come to get to grips with the legal parameters of AI. This includes, for example, protecting AI-generated works and avoiding copyright infringements by texts, images and software created by AI, not to mention any liability issues, data protection implications and the need to find a sensible approach to handling training and production data. FPS ensures that AI applications are legally compliant. We draft contracts, protect intellectual property and help to uphold ethical standards. In the event of any conflicts, we are our clients’ first line of defence. We also hold training courses on the subject of AI for our clients and their employees, together with leading AI consultants on request.

The metaverse covers 3D virtual environments where people and businesses interact and move around the virtual world with avatars. It unlocks new business opportunities, but lacks a consistent legal framework. FPS helps its clients to overcome these legal challenges. We find legally robust solutions, offer advice on risk prevention and successfully support metaverse projects.

The area of D&O liability is subject to constant change due to increasing regulation and the continuing development of business activities. For some time now, our experts have been representing executive bodies (managing directors as well as executive and supervisory board members) and market-leading D&O insurers in management liability cases.

In recent years, companies have increasingly made the move towards seeking insurance cover for possible damages suffered by their customers due to errors made in connection with the provision of services.
In this new field of business – compared to traditional professional liability– our experts benefit from their decades of expertise in representing professionals.

We specialise in dealing with antitrust issues involving distribution, cooperation with competitors, market positioning, IP, research and development. Our tailored solutions within the framework of antitrust law ensure the success of our clients. Boasting good contacts with authorities, we offer additional peace of mind and represent our clients’ interests before national and international competition authorities, including the Bundeskartellamt and the EU Commission. Our range of expertise covers price fixing, cartel bans, abuse of market power and merger control. At local and international level, we provide effective advice, support our clients in matters concerning foreign trade law and coordinate notifications using our excellent connections to authorities.

Errors made in the course of developing, manufacturing and marketing products of all kinds present considerable liability risks and can cause lasting damage to both the economic and personal legal interests of those affected. Accordingly, we advise our clients on all legal matters relating to product safety in order to prevent liability situations. Our expertise also extends to aspects of insurance law in particular. In liability cases, we advise our clients when representing them in court and resolving disputes out of court.

Our lawyers assist companies and management teams as well as creditors and insolvency administrators in all proceedings relating to insolvency law. This particularly applies to representation in avoidance proceedings, but also in all matters concerning the liability of different parties involved in insolvency proceedings.

Detailed tax advice is essential when dealing with estates and business succession plans. Failure to put an optimal tax structure in place can soon become disadvantageous. We have the appropriate expertise and find solutions with our clients’ interests in mind.

We advise and support our clients in criminal tax matters, tax audits and out-of-court proceedings and represent them in proceedings before the fiscal courts.

FPS has been advising a large number of sectoral clients for many years. Since 2016, for example, FPS has been assisting with all EU-wide procurement procedures relating to the expansion of the southern section of Frankfurt Airport and has also been supporting many municipal utility companies in all matters of sector procurement law.

Thanks to many years of experience in the field of public procurement law, FPS has extensive expertise in legal protection proceedings. FPS has successfully represented clients on both the contracting authority and tenderer side in numerous review proceedings nationwide before the public procurement chambers and higher regional courts, enabling relevant facts to be quickly recorded and prepared in a legally and tactically proficient manner.