Dr. Christian Rolf is a partner in the Executive Compensation and Employee Benefits Department and member of the Compliance Group in Frankfurt. He specializes on advising companies and enterprises on all aspects of labor and employment law and social security issues. Dr. Rolf regularly assists senior executives with employment contracts and compensation related matters, and is particularly specialized in handling negotiations with works councils and trade unions. He is also specialized in restructuring scenarios and complex litigation. Dr. Rolf frequently serves as counsel to management team in M&A transactions.
Labor Law and Social Security Issues
Dr. Rolf advises companies in labor law and social security issues in connection with acquisitions, redundancies, restructurings and business reorganizations. He also advises on business transfers, employee pension issues, employee participation programs and share option plans.
Compliance
Dr. Rolf is a member of the Frankfurt Compliance Group, where he specializes in HR compliance, data privacy and employment related aspects of internal investigations including litigation.
Selected Professional and Business Activities
Dr. Rolf is a member of the Frankfurt Bar Association and a member of the Labor and Social Affairs Committee of the AmCham Germany.
Prior Experience
Prior to joining Willkie, Dr. Rolf was a local partner with a US law firm in Frankfurt. He began his professional career in 2000 practicing in the labor law group of Gleiss Lutz and later gained significant international experience while working in Gleiss’ Shanghai office and while pursuing secondments with Herbert Smith in London and Stibbe in Brussels and Amsterdam.
Selected Significant Matters
– Management of t-online and Interactive Media in the Deutsche Bank sale of t-online.de / Interactive Media to Ströer
– Hudson Bay in its acquisition of Kaufhof Group
– Wendel in its acquisition of Constantia Flexibles Group
– 3i in its acquisition as well as following sale of Hilite Group
– 3i in its acquisition of GIF Group
– Raben Logistics Group in its acquisition of the road transport business from Wincanton PLC
– Rockwood in its sale of the Sachtleben Group
– Rockwood in ist sale of CeramTec Group
– Management of Scout24 during the sale of Scout24 Group to Hellman & Friedman by Deutsche Telekom
– France Telecom with respect to a joint venture with Deutsche Telekom
– Gigaset AG regarding restructuring
– St. Gobain Group on various items including redundancies
– Labdiagnostik Group regarding extensive internal investigations
– Archroma on the acquisition of BASF‘s global textile chemicals business
Selected Publications and Lectures
Dr. Rolf’s publications include:
– Foreign Companies and German Codetermination Issues,” published in the Festschrift for Prof. Löwisch (with Gerhard Röder, March 2007)
– “Google, Facebook & Co as data source for Companies in the recruitment process?”; published in Recht der Datenverarbeitung, pages 263-267 (with Michael Roetting, 2009)
– “Remuneration of Board Members under the revised German Stock Corporation Act as new challenge for the Supervisory Board”, published in Board Report, pages 43-46 (2010)
– “May the Remuneration of an Companionship’s Board Member only be decided by the Plenum of the Supervisory Board?”, will be published soon in Neue Zeitschrift für Gesellschaftsrecht (with Andreas Hautkappe and Stephanie Schmidt-Ehemann)
– Redundancies during Short Term Work Periods, published in Betriebs-Berater; pages 1597-1599 (with Jochen Riechwald, 2010)
– The revised law on redundancy companies published in Betriebs-Berater; pages 2805 -2808 (with Jochen Riechwald, 2011)
– Co-Author, The German Holiday Act (2015, 2nd. edition)
– Several remarks on employment law court rulings
