New Name, More Offices
MUNICH, 30 March 2009 – The Dusseldorf, Frankfurt/Main and Munich offices as well as parts of the Berlin office of the law firm Schwarz Kelwing Wicke Westpfahl were renamed SKW Schwarz Rechtsanwälte as of 1 April 2009. In addition to the offices listed above the firm will be represented in Hamburg as well. The firm’s more than 80 lawyers offer advice in all major areas of commercial law.
“We are very happy to have gained the valuable support of the 19 lawyers who worked at the Hamburg office of the distinguished firm SES Schlutius Eulitz Schrader,” says Andreas Seidel, managing director of the firm. “We have long wanted to establish a presence in Hamburg. Our SES colleagues will strengthen the expertise of SKW Schwarz in particular in the areas of commercial law, transport law and insolvency and restructuring.” SES Schlutius Eulitz Schrader and SKW Schwarz have been cooperating for years.
Following the split-off of major parts of the Berlin office SKW Schwarz will continue its work in the German capital with the Berlin partners Markus von Fuchs, Dr. Eberhard Kromer and Ermbrecht Rindtorff as well as two associates and one of counsel. Their foci are on media and entertainment law, IT law, internet and e-business, intellectual property law and competition law and public economic law, in particular public procurement regulations. The Berlin office will soon expand again with new partners and associates, in particular from the areas of corporate/commercial and labour law. Discussions with a number of applicants are already being held. The firm thus maintains its approach to offer a full range of services in Berlin, too; it plans to offer advice on corporate and commercial law, M&As, labour law and banking and financial services law at that office.
On 1 April 2009 SKW Schwarz also changed its structure to become a supralocal partnership (“überörtliche Partnerschaftsgesellschaft”). Mr Seidel explained that this step would create closer links between the individual offices. While the individual offices’ particular characteristics should remain in place as one of the major strengths of SKW Schwarz, the external presentation was to become more uniform and the firm was to be perceived more as a supraregional and international firm. He added: “The new name of the firm is part of this programme. The SKW acronym is a link to our former name. Beyond that, we will only use the name Schwarz in the future. In short, the brand SKW Schwarz will underline our being perceived as a national firm.”