Gide Loyrette Nouel A.A.R.P.I.

The firm: Gide is a leading international law firm and the first to have originated in France. Founded in Paris in 1920, the firm now operates from 12 offices worldwide. With 550 lawyers, drawn from 35 different nationalities, Gide offers some of the most respected specialists in all sectors of national and international finance and business law. In each of its offices in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Middle East and North America, the firm provides its clients with comprehensive knowledge of local markets, regional expertise, and the resources of an international law firm.

With over 200 lawyers working outside France, Gide has a truly international presence, including in New York and London where its American and British lawyers cover all aspects of US and English law and, in particular, international financing transactions. Gide has a long-standing full-service presence in a number of countries where the legal system is based on Roman-Germanic principles and, in particular, in Brussels, Central and Eastern Europe (two offices in Poland and Turkey, and some 80 lawyers), North Africa and the Middle East (four offices in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia and over 40 lawyers) and Asia (two offices in China, and some 30 lawyers).

Gide regularly works in close co-operation with leading law firms in the countries where it does not have offices and is a member of several international legal networks (including the European Network
together with Chiomenti, Cuatrecasas and Gleiss Lutz, and Lex Mundi, the world’s leading association of independent law firms – Gide is the exclusive member firm for France).

Gide is widely regarded as a key player throughout Africa, having advised a broad, blue-chip client base on a range of complex and challenging transactions for some 50 years. Its experience and expertise extend across the entire continent not only in French-speaking Western and Central Africa but also in Southern and Eastern Africa and in Portuguese-speaking countries.

Main areas of practice:  The firm is a full-service international firm. Its areas of expertise include: arbitration; banking and finance/capital markets; bankruptcy/ insolvency; competition/international trade; compliance and corporate investigations; criminal and commercial litigation; data protection; employment; energy; health law; insurance, industrial risk and transport; intellectual property/ telecommunications, media and technology; mergers and acquisitions/corporate law; oil, gas and mining law; projects (finance and infrastructure); private equity; public private partnerships; public law and environment; real estate transactions and financing; tax.

Organised into international practice groups, each specialising in a specific area of business law, Gide can draw on a veritable pool of market-recognised specialists who can act on all kinds of cases. The firm is in a position to set up task forces comprising legal and sector experts to best serve the needs of its clients.

In line with its pioneering spirit and ambition to be a reference law firm as regards innovation, Gide has set up a new team – Gide 255 – dedicated to offering strategic, legal and regulatory advice on all matters related to its clients’ digital transformation.  This team of experts in the fields of regulation, innovation and strategy aims to offer “augmented” advice on changing business models and new behaviours that are deeply affected by the development of advanced technologies. It also offers high-end support to help advance the changing legal and regulatory framework both in France and abroad, whether ongoing or to come. Gide 255 covers in particular the growing stakes of blockchain, ICOs, artificial intelligence, automation and various aspects of data processing.

The recognised know-how of all Gide teams as regards business law, combined with the comprehensive experience of this new team on all challenges pertaining to digital transformation, together enable the firm to offer its clients a unique tool to help decision-making processes in a context that is disrupted by the advent of breakthrough technologies.

Clients: Gide acts for a wide range of private and public clients, including mid-caps, multinational corporations, local authorities, sovereign states, international institutions and start-ups.