Bio

Dirk Besse is a leading adviser, with more than 20 years of experience advising clients on cross-border mergers and acquisitions, the German Stock Corporation, and capital markets law. His practice has a particular emphasis on the internet, pharmaceutical, finance, telecommunications, and other tech-heavy industries. He represents clients in relation to major cross-border M&A transactions in Germany, and advises on German foreign investment rules. He has handled prominent public take-over battles, important VC investments such as the investment of SoftBank Vision Funds in Auto1, and cross-border share-for-share deals— such as the merger of Spark Networks and Affinitas— with subsequent listing on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Dirk regularly advises German publicly listed companies on capital markets law. He is also experienced in the counseling of boards and board directors on governance and compliance issues. Dirk was a lecturer in the Excellence for Supervisory Boards program established by the DAI and the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management and served as a member and also chairman of various supervisory boards. In addition, he frequently publishes articles in the fields of corporate law and capital markets law and on M&A-related topics. Dirk is currently managing partner of our Berlin office and heads our European Corporate and M&A groups.