German Boutique Snapped Up

Graf von Westphalen – a general partnership of attorneys at law, auditors and tax consultants – has made another acquisition with the take-over of Waltl Rechtsanwalt – a Germany-based boutique law firm specialising in business law.  The Waltl Rechtsanwalt deal is the second boutique takeover for Graf in the last year. The firm acquired five-lawyer insolvency and restructuring specialist Liersch during 2009.

The four-lawyer Munich-based firm is led by Peter Waltl.  He specialises in company and IT law. Having been a partner at a large cross-regional law firm for many years, he has more recently opened his own law firm in 2002.  He mainly advises German and American companies on transactions and the structuring and drafting of contracts. Waltl also covers commercial matters, including advising Sued-Chemie on the sale of its Pet Products Division to the German financial investor Capiton.

He is joined at Graf by his team that includes Dunja Stadtmann and Daniel Michel. It is not clear what the situation is with the boutique’s other lawyer, Eva Hermann. Daniel Michel, LL.M. is specialised in IT/IP law and Dr. Danja Stadtmann specialises in corporate and banking law. Dunja Stadtmann also has an excellent grasp of Chinese and will therefore be a boost to Graf von Westphalen’s China desk and will help develop the Munich-Shanghai axis.