Alber & Geiger

Alber & Geiger
Government Relations Law firm
Industry Lobbying
Founded 2007
Headquarters

Brussels, Belgium.

Berlin, Germany
Key people
 Siegbert Alber, Chairman Andreas Geiger, Managing Partner
Website http://www.albergeiger.com

Alber & Geiger is a political lobbying powerhouse and the leading European government relations law firm, lobbying the EU institutions in Brussels. The firm has also a strong litigation practice at the European Court of Justice and has offices in Brussels, Berlin and London.[1]

Among the firm's partners are the former President of the European Parliament and member of the British House of Lords, Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, the former Advocate General of the European Court of Justice and Vice President of the European Parliament, Prof. Siegbert Alber, the former Secretary General of the European Commission, Carlo Trojan, and the former Director of the European Commission's Legal Service, Prof. Dr. Rolf Wägenbaur.

The firm was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of leading US lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates by its former European CEO, Dr. Andreas Geiger. Before that, Geiger was Head of the EU Law Center of Ernst & Young in Brussels and attorney at the law firm Taylor Wessing. He wrote a handbook on EU lobbying.

Besides lobbying for corporate clients the firm is known for representing foreign governments. Alber & Geiger received much media attention for successfully representing the Bulgarian and the Moroccan governments against the EU Institutions. But Alber & Geiger have also represented cases against certain governments on the violation of EU standards, including Azerbaijan, Serbia and Moldova. Some of their corporate cases include winning against Microsoft before the EU Commission in the EU "browser war", the EU plastic bag ban or the state monopolies for lotteries and gambling in the EU. The latter comes basically from the fact that the firm's Chairman, Prof. Alber, represents large parts of the EU gambling industry due to his background as the Advocate General in the European Court of Justice's landmark "Gambelli" case.

Among the firm's lobbying clients are:

For its lobbying work the firm is regularly nominated, including by The Lawyer, London, as "Benelux Law Firm of the Year", by Legal Week, London, as "European Legal Team of the Year" and by European Public Affairs Awards, Brussels, as "Consultancy of the Year".

Controversy

In June 2012, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent, a leading UK newspaper, revealed how senior members of the House of Lords failed to disclose their business interests in a public inquiry. On Lord Plumb's entry in the register of interests he lists his only renumerated employment/profession as 'farming' despite his involvement with the Brussels-based lobbying firm Alber and Geiger since 2007.[2] According to The Independent, Lord Plumb insists, he did not need to register his involvement because he had never been in employment, paid or unpaid by the firm which is typically the case in law firms with non-executive senior members.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "Richter lehnen Extrawurst für Zentralbanker ab" [Judges reject special treatment for central bank workers]. Die Welt (in German). 23 February 2014. Retrieved 2015-07-23.
  2. ↑ Newman, Melanie; Wright, Oliver (20 June 2012). "Chamber of secrets: House of Lords exposed". Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 2015-07-23.
  3. ↑ Newman, Melanie; Wright, Oliver & McClenaghan, Maeve (20 June 2012). "Undeclared interests: Peers fail to register business roles". Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 2015-07-23.

Sources

External links

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