Legal
Legal advice from SBP means in the first place: Creating added value for our clients! This requires, in addition to well-founded legal knowledge, effectiveness and a clear vision of what we can practically achieve.
We see it as our job and strength to provide strictly solution-focused legal advice. We keep our clients covered, so that they can focus on the essentials. And: legal advice is not buried in files but takes place between people. Therefore, legal advice from SBP is clear and transparent.
Our lawyers are often qualified in several areas and absolute experts in their fields. They are in close contract with one another. Interdisciplinary working is part of our law firm culture. We are active both as consultants and as litigation lawyers in court and arbitration proceedings.
Our long-standing expertise enables SBP to support clients in key areas of the employment and service contract law, both in the day-to-day business of the personnel work and in special issues.
In a competitive labor market, our specialized lawyers draw up customized labor and employment contracts and provide support in the development of innovative remuneration and variable bonus systems as well as flexible working time solutions. We provide advice in the clarification of increasingly complex issues of the leasing and posting of employees and in the design of transfers of business and operational changes. Our clients rely on our long-standing expertise in negotiations with works councils and employee representatives just as in the preparation and implementation of separation processes. If a dispute cannot be avoided, we will represent our clients before the labor courts.
A core expertise of our labor law practice lies in consulting and representing board members, managing directors and executives as well as in drawing up contracts with executive bodies. At this point, our clients benefit from the profound expertise of our law firm in corporate law.
The clients of the labor law practice include small and medium-sized companies, German subsidiaries of foreign groups, foundations, and executives.
Under the guidance of an experienced certified specialist for banking and capital markets law, our finance lawyers advise debtors on all issues of credit financing and credit security and also support our clients in refinancing and restructuring their financial exposures.
SBP advises companies, shareholders, managing directors, board members and committees regarding all corporate law challenges. Our range of services in particular comprises formations of enterprises, drawing up of articles of association and partnership agreements, restructurings and capital measures, transactions, preparation and conduct of shareholders’ and general meetings as well as forensic consulting and representation in corporate law disputes.
In the day-to-day business, we provide ongoing support to our clients in negotiating, drafting, adapting, and terminating company-related contracts, at a national and international level. This includes, for example, legal structuring of business and distribution models, consultancy in the utilization of loans and drafting of model contracts. In conflicts with customers, suppliers, and debtors, we assist our clients in court.
Our clients include small and medium-sized companies, in particular family-owned enterprises, hidden champions and technology leaders.
In the field of commercial tenancy law SBP advises and represents leasing companies, funds, portfolio holders, investors, and tenants. The main focus of the range of consulting services lies on negotiation and drafting of tenancy agreements as well as on litigation.
Our law firm advises clients across all aspects of succession. Due to the expertise built up over years, our advisors are able to recognize pitfalls, to proactively develop sustainable solutions and at the same time to reconcile divergent interests.
Our lawyers provide support in the structuring of companies and assets as well as in the drafting of wills, contracts of inheritance, family offices and family constitutions, and foundation solutions. Our range of services also includes the succession-related support of international families and international assets. Our lawyers attend to executors in the performance of their duties and themselves are regularly called in as executors. They also have substantial expertise in inheritance disputes. At a time of growing international mobility, our experts are increasingly called in to clarify issues of applicable law.
Our clients include entrepreneurial families, family offices, private clients, investors, and property owners. If necessary, we collaborate closely and smoothly with the tax, investment, and strategy consultants of these clients.
Advice in conflict situations and representation of our clients in court in connection with the enforcement of and the defense against claims in corporate and other commercial disputes have always been a focus of our activities. The successes of our litigation lawyers are based on knowledge gained over decades in numerous proceedings with varied, including international, backgrounds. We represent our clients in German ordinary courts just as in institutional or ad hoc arbitration and expert arbitrator procedures. Our litigation lawyers are often called in as arbitrators or expert arbitrators. Where necessary, our litigation experts pursue the interests of our clients through measures of interim relief and preservation of evidence. If necessary, we coordinate our action with defense attorneys and further consultants of our clients.
Special forensic experience has been gained by us from the successful representation in directors’ and officers’ liability cases and in the enforcement of claims for damage due to breach of duty by tax advisors and lawyers. In these areas and for the management of shareholder disputes (of all corporate forms), we are consulted by clients from all over Germany. Our expertise with crisis-ridden shareholder relations and our in-depth corporate law know-how enables us to enforce the interests of our clients precisely and to solve the conflict situation specifically.
Moreover, the sound judgement and the experience of our forensic experts is in demand in inheritance disputes, which mostly involve corporate law issues in the case entrepreneurial families. Our lawyers represent clients both in dispute courts and in probate courts, e.g. in forced heirship matters, cases for contesting a will, certificate of inheritance procedures, and cases for identifying heirs.
Furthermore, the court matters attended to by us often involve disputes:
in the follow-up of M&A transactions
in connection with complex contracts
with a focus on commercial law issues
from commercial tenancies
Our lawyers are among the few specialists active in Germany who exclusively represent the claimant parties, thus the affected clients, – institutions, companies and individuals – in all legal matters relating to the professional liability of accountants and legal advisors. The successes of the lawyers of the practice group result from their specialist skills gained in a variety of diputes and from their independence from the insurers backing up the advisors. Our specialists are often brought on board in a trustfull manner by other law firms.
Based on high professional demands, affected clients may expect a profound and serious advice, openness, and a professional penetration of the relevant issues. Legal disputes are mapped out strategically and are conducted with commitment. Our renowned specialists are regularly involved in large disputes.
Advise on all aspects of the foundation law is one of the core competencies of SBP. The complex matter relates to, inter alia, regulatory law of regional German states, corporate law and non-profit law.
The Firm has a long history of providing comprehensive support to a large number of foundations in all legal issues. We are in demand to advise in the case of establishments and structuring of foundations and contributions as well as of the ongoing advice for private or non-profit, independent or dependent foundations, including, in particular, family foundations. Due to their excellent know-how, our lawyers are often appointed to foundation bodies.