CMS (law firm)

Last updated

CMS Legal Services EEIG
CMS Law Tax Future 2021 New Logo.svg
Headquarters Frankfurt, Germany
No. of officesApprox. 80
No. of attorneys4,239
No. of employeesIncrease2.svg 8,000
Major practice areas
  • Banking and finance
  • Capital markets
  • Fintech
  • Corporate and M&A
  • Litigation & dispute resolution
  • Real estate
  • Tax, pensions and employment
Key people
  • Pierre-Sébastien Thill
    (Chairman)
  • Duncan Weston
    (Executive Partner)
  • Isabel Scholes
    (Executive Director)
RevenueIncrease2.svg $ 2.065 billions [1]
Date founded20 December 1999;23 years ago (1999-12-20)
Company type Private (european economic interest grouping) with 18 member firms
Website cms.law

CMS is an international law firm that offers legal and tax advisory services. It provides companies and organisations with advice on a full range of legal issues. [2] CMS consists of 18 independent law firms with about 80 offices worldwide and is the world's 5th largest law firm by lawyer headcount and the 21st by revenue. [3]

Contents

History

In 1999, six European law firms with 1,400+ lawyers and roughly DM 500 million in joint revenues came together to form CMS. [4] Under the CMS brand, which initially drew criticism, [5] a "partnership of partnerships" emerged. [6] [7] The member law firms retained their established names. [8] A central service unit was created to provide administrative and IT services for the members. [9]

Initially, CMS included law firms from Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and the United Kingdom among others. [10] Over the course of the 2000s, additional law firms joined from France, Italy, Monaco, Switzerland and Spain, along with other countries. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] In 2008, the law firm opened its first joint office in Russia. [16] With the merger of CMS Cameron McKenna with Nabarro and Olswang in 2016, the law firm expanded once again. [17] This resulted in CMS generating a total revenue of roughly one billion EUR for the first time. [18] [19] [20] Today, there are also CMS offices in Latin America and Africa. [21] [22]

Russia

Carter-Ruck was involved in legal action against Financial Times journalist Catherine Belton and her publisher HarperCollins over her book Putin’s People . [23]

In April 2022, CMS law firm was named alongside Harbour Litigation Funding by Kevin Hollinrake MP, in a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak MP, as two professional services firms acting for the benefit of Russian state entities during the invasion of Ukraine. The letter highlighted that both Harbour and CMS are working on behalf of the Russian state-owned DIA to bypass sanction regimes and obtain funds and assets from abroad in order to fund the war in Ukraine. [24]

CMS was named by U.S. congressman Steve Cohen as doing "unscrupulous" work for Russia that undermined democratic values and strengthened the Vladimir Putin regime in Russia. CMS rejected allegations of impropriety and said the firm had not accepted new instructions from individuals associated with the Putin regime. [23]

Structure

CMS coordinates the activities of its members through CMS Legal Services EEIG, a european economic interest grouping. [25] In its early phase, it handled administrative tasks, gradually taking on additional duties, e.g. in marketing. CMS Legal Services does not act on behalf of clients. As a not for profit entity, it is financed by means of revenue contributions from the participating law firms, which remain legally independent. [26]

The CMS Council functions as the highest decision-making body of CMS. It convenes at least twice a year, taking decisions on budgets and the acceptance of new members. Moreover, there is an Executive Committee, which handles strategic issues such as the appointment and governance of the executive team. Each participating law firm appoints representatives to the Committee. [25]

The daily running of CMS is in the hands of a three-person executive team. It consists of Pierre-Sébastien Thill (Chairman), Duncan Weston (Executive Partner) and Isabel Scholes (Executive Director). [27]

Locations

Currently, CMS has 18 member firms with main headquarters in twelve European, four South American and two African countries. [28] In addition to legal services provided in their home countries, the member law firms are active in other countries via branches, subsidiaries and associated law firms, along with offices and representative offices in other countries. [29]

Members

Services

CMS pursues a full-service strategy, [30] and offers companies of various sizes worldwide business-focused advice in law and tax matters. The key specialist areas include corporate law, capital markets law, tax law, energy law, procurement law, competition law and labour law.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bertelsmann</span> German multinational media, services and education company

The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann, is a German private multinational conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is one of the world's largest media conglomerates and is also active in the service sector and education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andreas Schwab</span> German politician (born 1973)

Andreas Schwab is a German politician and member of the European Parliament for Germany. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party. Since 2009, he has been Of Counsel with CMS Hasche Sigle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olswang</span> Law firm

Olswang was an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom and with additional offices in Reading, Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Singapore and, since 2011, Munich. It worked closely with a network of firms across eighty countries. The Lawyer ranked the firm 22nd largest in the UK by worldwide turnover in 2010. That year, the firm had over 600 staff, including 97 partners. David Stewart was the firm's chief executive. On 1 May 2017, Olswang merged with CMS Cameron McKenna and Nabarro to form CMS Nabarro Olswang LLP.

Network DVR (NDVR), or network personal video recorder (NPVR), or remote storage digital video recorder (RS-DVR) is a network-based digital video recorder (DVR) stored at the provider's central location rather than at the consumer's private home. Traditionally, media content was stored in a subscriber's set-top box hard drive, but with NDVR the service provider owns a large number of servers, on which the subscribers' media content is stored. The term RS-DVR is used by Cablevision for their version of this technology.

Haarmann Hemmelrath was a German professional services firm which provided legal services, audit counsel and tax advice. Haarmann Hemmelrath was founded in Munich in 1987 and at its peak employed 650 professionals, including 350 attorneys in 22 offices worldwide. It was broken up in 2006.

Hengeler Mueller is a German law firm of about 320 lawyers. The firm maintains offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Brussels and London. The firm was created in 1990 when Hengeler Kurth Wirtz and Mueller Weitzel Weisner merged. It has been recognized in the top tier of firms in the fields of mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, finance, private equity and structured finance, particularly in synthetic securitization. The firm maintains strong ties with Slaughter and May, Bonelli Erede Pappalardo (Italy), Bredin Prat (France), De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and Uría Menéndez (Spain). In March 2014, it became known that the Munich public prosecutor's office was investigating lawyers at the law firm for inciting false unsworn testimony and aiding and abetting fraud, and that the law firm's offices had been searched. The lawyers were accused of arranging untrue statements with witnesses in a court case brought by the heirs of Leo Kirch against Deutsche Bank over the insolvency of the Kirch Group. In April 2016, the Deutsche Bank board members were acquitted in the related trial at the Munich Regional Court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ince & Co</span> International commercial law firm

Ince & Co is a United Kingdom-based holding company with a core business in legal services, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company also offers complementary services in accounting, financial services, consulting, and pensions advice. It was previously known as Ince Gordon Dadds LLP, following the acquisition of Ince & Co by Gordon Dadds Group LLP, and rebranded as The Ince Group in August 2019.

Taylor Wessing LLP is an international law firm with 28 offices internationally. The firm has over 300 partners and over 1000 lawyers worldwide. The company was formed as a result of a merger of the British law firm Taylor Joynson Garrett and the German law firm Wessing & Berenberg-Gossler, retaining the first name of each.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nabarro LLP</span> Law firms of the United Kingdom

Nabarro LLP was an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. In 2014/15 it achieved total revenues of £126 million, making it the 34th-largest UK-based law firm by this measurement, and profits per equity partner of £576,000. It is part of an international alliance with other independent law firms covering Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Securing Energy for Europe</span>

SEFE Securing Energy for Europe GmbH, a company registered in Berlin, Germany, is headquarters of a diversified conglomerate, comprises 40 entities operating in more than 20 countries in Europe, Asia and North America. Under the former name Gazprom Germania GmbH it was a 100% subsidiary of the world's largest natural gas company, Gazprom, from 1990 to 2022. Since 2022, Germany's federal energy regulator – the Bundesnetzagentur – has controlled the company as a temporary trustee. In June 2023, SEFE signed a 20-year contract for 2.25 million tonnes of LNG per year from a US company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rheinauhafen</span>

The Rheinauhafen is a 15.4 hectares urban regeneration project in Cologne, Germany, located along the river Rhine between the Südbrücke and Severinsbrücke, just south of the inner city's historic old town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Noerr</span>

Noerr is a pan-European full-service law firm headquartered in Munich, Germany. Founded in 1950, the firm today operates 15 offices in Germany, Central and Eastern Europe, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Noerr currently employs over 500+ lawyers, tax consultants, chartered accountants and business consultants. As of September 2022 Noerr is ranked as the second largest independent German law firm by revenue, behind Hengeler Mueller, making it the sixth-largest European law firm by revenue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Osborne Clarke</span> London-based law firm

Osborne Clarke is an international legal practice headquartered in London, England, UK with offices in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, China, India via BTG Legal, Singapore, the United States and Poland. The firm has over 320 partners and more than 2,440 employees spread across its 25 offices around the world. The firm's headquarters are located in London, United Kingdom.

The legal services sector of the United Kingdom is a significant part of the national economy; it had a total output of £22.6 billion in 2013, up from 10.6 billion in 2001, and is equivalent to 1.6% of the country's gross domestic product for that year. The sector has a trade surplus is £3.1 billion in 2013 and directly employees 316,000 people, two-thirds of whom are located outside London. The UK is the world's most international market for legal services. It allows virtually unrestricted access for foreign firms, resulting in over 200 foreign law firms with offices in London and other cities in the UK. Around half of these are US firms, with the remainder mainly from Europe, Australia and Canada. The UK legal market has a strong global position due to the popularity of English law. Some 27% of the world's 320 legal jurisdictions use English Common law.

Gleiss Lutz Hootz Hirsch, frequently referred to as Gleiss Lutz, is a business law firm headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. It is one of Germany's largest law firms, with six German offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, and Stuttgart, and one in Brussels. The firm formerly had offices in Prague. As of 2017, Gleiss Lutz has the seventh-largest number of Chambers-ranked lawyers in Germany. Gleiss Lutz is a full-service business law firm and covers, amongst others, legal areas including corporate law, mergers & acquisitions, competition and antitrust law, labour and employment law as well as litigation and arbitration. Additionally, the firm offers industry-specific groups such as automotive, healthcare or energy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephan Harbarth</span> President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany

Stephan Harbarth is the President of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht), former German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). From 2009 until 2018 he served as member of the Bundestag. On 22 November 2018 he was elected to the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundestag. He succeeded Ferdinand Kirchhof and serves in the court's first senate. On 23 November 2018, one day after his election to the court, he was elected Vice President of the Federal Constitutional Court by the Bundesrat. In this capacity, he is chairman of the first senate.

Klaus Josef Lutz is a German lawyer and business manager. In 2008, he took over as chief executive officer and chairman of the board of BayWa and had since shaped the listed group with activities in the agricultural, building materials, and energy sectors. Previously, as managing director, he restructured, among others, Süddeutscher Verlag, which publishes the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Lutz is considered an expert on cooperatives.

Joel Levi was an Israeli lawyer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Volker Mayer-Lay</span> German politician

Volker Mayer-Lay is a German politician. He has been a member of the Bundestag for the CDU since 2021.

References

  1. ↑ ""The 2022 Global 200 Ranked by Revenue". Law.Com. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
  2. ↑ Peters, Patrick (21 March 2014). "Beratung bei strategischen Themen". Bergische Morgenpost (in German).
  3. ↑ ""The 2022 Global 200 Ranked by Revenue". Law.Com. Retrieved 23 May 2023.
  4. ↑ "Wirtschaftskanzleien fusionieren". Hamburger Abendblatt (in German). 30 April 1999. p. 21.
  5. ↑ Tödtmann, Claudia (9 September 1999). "Anwälte: Versteckspielen gilt nicht". Wirtschaftswoche (in German). p. 120.
  6. ↑ "Neue Vereinigung von Anwälten". Börsen-Zeitung (in German). 4 May 1999. p. 26.
  7. ↑ Pfeffer, Alexander (22 June 1999). "Europäische Union der Anwälte". WirtschaftsBlatt (in German). p. 6.
  8. ↑ "Integration Push Sparks CMS Name-Dropping Row". The Lawyer. 19 November 2007. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  9. ↑ Becker, Walther (1 April 2003). "CMS Hasche Sigle ist eigenständig im Verbund". Börsen-Zeitung (in German). p. 10.
  10. ↑ "Sechs europäische Spitzen-Kanzleien arbeiten zusammen". Die Welt (in German). 29 April 1999. p. 2.
  11. ↑ "Francis Lefebvre Joins the CMS Global Alliance". The Lawyer. 12 February 2001. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  12. ↑ Wicke, Vera (1 March 2002). "CMS steuert nach Italien" (in German). Juve Verlag. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  13. ↑ Ward, Anna (10 July 2017). "CMS Moves into Monaco Market via Tie-Up with Local Firm". Legalweek. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  14. ↑ Brenner, Beat (15 May 2000). "Schweizerisch-britische Anwaltsfusion: Erlach Klainguti Stettler Wille zieht es nach London". Neue Zürcher Zeitung (in German). p. 20.
  15. ↑ Albert, Christine (4 November 2004). "Nun auch in Spanien: CMS erweitert Netzwerk" (in German). Juve Verlag. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  16. ↑ Becker, Walther (3 December 2008). "CMS-Kanzleien in Moskau zusammen". Börsen-Zeitung (in German). p. 10.
  17. ↑ Hyde, John (10 October 2016). "It's a Deal: CMS Confirms Merger with Olswang and Nabarro". The Law Society Gazette. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  18. ↑ Coe, Aebra (10 June 2016). "Int'l Law Firm CMS' Revenue Breaks Through €1B Barrier". Law360. Portfolio Media. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  19. ↑ Ames, Jonathan (10 October 2016). "Law Firm Merger Creates £1bn Giant". The Times. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  20. ↑ "CMS: Fast eine Milliarde Euro Umsatz". Legal Tribune Online (in German). 20 June 2017. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  21. ↑ "Drei neue Mitgliedskanzleien: CMS-Verbund wächst in Lateinamerika" (in German). Juve Verlag. 19 January 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  22. ↑ "Ausbau in Afrika: Kanzleien aus Südafrika und Kenia treten weltweitem CMS-Netzwerk bei" (in German). Juve Verlag. 15 October 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  23. 1 2 "US congressman urges Biden to ban six UK lawyers for 'enabling' oligarchs". the Guardian. 19 April 2022. Retrieved 4 May 2022.
  24. ↑ "Tory backbencher calls on government to close 'loopholes' letting London firms work for the Kremlin". CityAM. 11 April 2022. Retrieved 12 April 2022.
  25. 1 2 "CMS Legal Services". Unternehmensregister (in German). Bundesanzeiger Verlag. 6 July 2001. Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  26. ↑ Meiselles, Michala (2015). "The European Economic Interest Grouping – A Chance for Multinationals?". European Business Law Review. Kluwer Law International (26). ISSN   0959-6941.
  27. ↑ "CMS: Cornelius Brandi gibt Führung des Kanzleiverbunds ab". Legal Tribune Online (in German). 18 June 2019. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
  28. ↑ "Legal Information". CMS Legal Services. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  29. ↑ "CMS Legal Services". Global Competition Review. Vol. 100, no. 19. 23 January 2019. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  30. ↑ Tismer, Christoph (2002). "CMS – Full Service statt nur Highend-Geschäft" (PDF). Justament (in German). Retrieved 11 March 2019.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to CMS (law firm) at Wikimedia Commons

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.