Earth Avocats

A partner for your projects

Our core strengths

We offer our customers bespoke expertise by matching their projects with the appropriate skills based on the area of practice under consideration.

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Regulated Industries

The teams dedicated to Regulated Industries, working in a cross-disciplinary manner, are made up of lawyers with recognized skills in specific legislative practices: Energy and natural resources, Electronic Communications, Public Housing, Education and Media. In order to offer a comprehensive service to its clients, Earth Avocats combines its expertise in regulated industries with its specific know-how in public economic law, corporate – M&A, urban planning, land development, project financing, competition, taxation, commercial contracts and litigation.

The teams regularly act for major groups, public and semi-public entities, investment funds, industrial or infrastructure companies.

Expertise in Regulated Industries

  • Legal and real estate restructuring and project financing;
  • Assistance to clients during the negotiation of contracts specific to regulated industries (negotiation, closing, implementation);
  • Audit, transaction, drafting of transfer contracts;
  • Assistance and defense before regulatory or supervisory authorities (CSA, ARCEP, ANFr, CRE, ANCOLS, ART… );
  • Activity, operation or marketing permits;
  • Advice and assistance to providers in their user / consumer relations (pricing, purchase obligation contracts, regulated sales tariffs, access to networks, quality of service);
  • Consultations, Calls for tenders, Call for Interest and Calls for Projects;
  • Litigation or arbitration before all courts.
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Healthcare

Healthcare legislation is a very specific sector-based law governing the activities of public and private actors in the healthcare industry. It includes all the legal regulations specific to the activity, organization and functioning of this sector.

Healthcare legislation is undergoing numerous changes and transformations due to the emergence of contemporary issues such as digital technology and the evolution of institutional governance.

Through its multidisciplinary practice, Earth Avocats has a comprehensive approach to healthcare legislation. It advises its clients through an articulation of various regulatory and transactional considerations. Among its clients, Earth Avocats counts Hospital Centers, University Hospital Centers, Regional University Hospital Centers, Territorial Hospital Groups, private for-profit or non-profit healthcare establishments, Public Interest Groups, Economic Interest Groups etc.

  • Public and private healthcare establishments legislation
  • Health cooperation (GCS agreement, GIE, GIP, FMIM, PIE, GHT) and specific structures legislation (hospital foundation, etc. )
  • Authorizations legislation: care and equipment activities
  • Legislation for contracts applied to healthcare
  • e-health legislation (online healthcare services)
  • Healthcare data protection legislation
  • Medical and pharmaceutical practice legislation
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Public Business Law

Mastering public business law is essential to the growth and security of the firm’s clients’ activities. Earth Avocats’s core competencies include mastering contracting methods between all types of public and private actors, knowing how to finance public interest initiatives, monitoring the development of all types of regulations, anticipating changes in government policies resulting from European Union legislation, and mastering the methods of obtaining the necessary authorizations and permits for our clients’ projects.

Our teams dedicated to public business law are proficient in the legal and strategic constraints linked to the world of business and public authorities.

This variety of knowledge shapes our identity on the legal market. The scope of our teams’ expertise ranges from public property issues to complex legal set-ups, as well as public and semi-public consortiums. Our colleagues are continually scrutinizing the new regulations in force to ensure the best possible set-ups and to accompany the entities thus created in carrying out their mission.

  • Public procurement contracts
  • Public property legislation (administrative property legislation)
  • Public and mixed companies legislation
  • Public and semi-public consortiums legislation
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Corporate / M&A

Earth Avocats assists its clients in their growth ambitions, whether to strengthen their financial standing, secure their position or open up to new markets.

The Corporate / M&A practice advises its French and foreign clients at all stages of their development and their M&A operations. Our expertise covers all corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, private equity, stock exchange law, and restructuring (carve out, spin off, distressed M&A), both in terms of transaction and litigation, as well as on regulatory matters.

  • Legal and tax structuring of operations and their financing
  • Drafting and negotiation of contractual and pre-contractual documentation
  • Organization of data-rooms and pre- or post-acquisition audits
  • Preparation and execution of closing procedures
  • Monitoring of operations
  • Implementation of management packages
  • Creation and structuring of investment funds
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Urbanism and environment

Earth Avocats assists its clients in building shared spaces respectful of social and economic issues, environmental constraints and urban planning regulations.

Our dedicated teams provide transactional and litigation services in the fields of land development, urban planning and environmental law. They advise private and public sector contracting authorities in the setting up and monitoring of development and construction operations.

  • Lan development law: development transactions, land use, financing of public facilities, development concession agreements
  • Urban planning law: urban planning documents, urban planning permits, commercial urban planning, criminal law pertaining to urban planning, preservation of built and natural heritage.
  • Environmental law: environmental assessments, citizen participation procedures, environmental permits, protection of natural areas, regulation concerning listed facilities, prevention of natural risks, planning documents.
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Construction and Real Estate Law

Earth Avocats is active in all aspects of building the city of the future. Our construction and real estate practices aim to integrate the highest social and environmental requirements for improved community living.

The firm will easily meet all the legal needs of your real estate projects, both in terms of transaction and regulatory advice and litigation, throughout the entire construction or renovation process.

The Construction Law team provides legal assistance to project developers, public and private entities, and to local public/private partnerships. Our expertise is at work right from the start of the development, throughout the life of the construction site, and at the time of acceptance/delivery of the project. Our competence also includes the better enforcement of legal warranties of the contractors :

  • Drafting of public procurement contracts
  • Advice on complex set-ups (CPI, VEFA)
  • Preventive referrals
  • Litigation during the construction process (collective proceedings, claims, subcontracting, TS, site hazards)
  • Disputes related to the completion of works
  • Lifting of acceptance or delivery reservations
  • Enforcement of the contractors’ legal warranties in case of defects (GPA, biennial, decennial)
  • Enforcement of contractual or quasi-litigious liability warranties of the various service contracting parties
  • Litigation related to construction insurance (TRC, RC, RCD, CCRD, DO)
  • Real estate transaction (sale or lease)
  • Commercial leases
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Litigation

Earth Avocats provides legal assistance to its public and private clients in all aspects of their activities, before administrative and judicial courts. The firm also intervenes in the context of alternative dispute resolution.

At Earth Avocats, our results-oriented culture, technical precision, and experience allow us to achieve very significant successes.

The experience acquired by the firm’s attorneys in highly regulated industries, such as healthcare, transportation, energy, telecommunications, and public housing, enables them to offer high value-added legal assistance in technical litigation proceedings and in dealing with regulatory or supervisory authorities.

  • Administrative litigation
  • Business and stock exchange litigation
  • Penal litigation: breaches of probity, economic offences, environmental criminal law.
  • Alternative dispute resolution.
  • Constitutional litigation.
  • Litigation in financial courts.
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Tax

The Earth Avocats law firm’s tax practice works in close cooperation with all of the firm’s attorneys on the most complex tax issues, particularly in highly regulated industries, which is the core competence of Earth Avocats.

Tax optimization is one of the major areas of expertise of the tax team. Our tax practice for public and private institutions and companies involves mastering the most elaborate tax litigation. This skill is combined with an excellent command of financial and accounting aspects.

From tax audits to assistance with tax audits, we guarantee a personalized follow-up, adapted to your industry, regulatory and budgetary issues.

  • VAT, corporate tax, CVAE, CFE, payroll tax, property taxes, local taxes.
  • Assistance in provisional and declarative tax management.
  • Tax audit and impacts on labor and social contributions.
  • Securing of internal processes, rescripts.
  • Pre-litigation, litigation, claims.
  • Financing of public facilities, real estate projects and other investments.
  • Assistance with tax audits.
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Government Law and Policy

Earth Avocats has expertise in public policy and its various legislation, as well as in regulatory matters. Its competence in the fields of public institutional rights, regulatory, and compliance makes it a leading expert in government and local authorities and bodies.

The firm’s teams are able to provide tailored advice regarding public strategies, interaction with political power and public administrative staff.

  • Public policy.
  • local authorities and inter-municipal cooperation.
  • Public service legislation.
  • Civil liberties.
  • Drafting of regulatory texts & relations with public authorities.
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Restructuring and Insolvency

Earth Avocats advises companies, their executive and managing officers, and their shareholders in the context of amicable or collective proceedings. The firm also provides its expertise to industrial or financial buyers in the context of their asset acquisition strategy.

With many years of experience serving executives and shareholders in France and abroad, the Restructuring and Insolvency team supports the growth of companies and anticipates crises by setting up ad hoc legal tools for preventing and handling financial distress.

  • Protection against distress with mutual agreement procedures: debt restructuring, refinancing, LBO debt renegotiation.
  • Distress management in collective procedures: from insolvency declaration to winding up proceedings, adoption of a business continuity plan.
  • Acquisition or sale of distressed companies: Distressed M&A.
  • Executive and shareholder liability: advice to executives and shareholders in the event that their liability is involved.
  • Litigation: management of conflicts between shareholders or between shareholders and executives.
  • Public legislation regarding the restructuring of companies in distress
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Financial Services

Earth Avocats has extensive experience in structuring, documenting, and negotiating all types of financing for private and public partners.

The dedicated team advises numerous credit institutions, acting as arrangers, lead arrangers, participants, as well as private (bond and mezzanine) and public investors. It also provides advice to public entities seeking specialized financing for their projects.

  • Projects financing / PPP (financing of infrastructure, energy production equipment, means of transportation, public works, telecommunications equipment, etc.).
  • Real estate financing (mortgage or non-mortgage loans, leasing contracts, etc.).
  • Assets financing (aeronautical, maritime, production sites, defense, etc.).
  • Acquisitions financing (LBOs, public offerings, MBO, etc.).

 

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Competition & foreign investments

Earth Avocats assists its public and private clients in the safe conduct of their business strategies under French and European competition law.

Its dedicated teams regularly advise foreign investors in their acquisition of companies in France, as well as French sellers wishing to secure their transactions with foreign players.

With offices in Paris and Brussels, the firm is particularly active in regulated industries, thus completing its expertise in these sectors.

  • Anti-competitive practices: merger control, cartels, abuse of dominance, abuse of economic dependence.
  • Foreign direct investments: organization and authorization request from the Directorate General of the Treasury.
  • State subsidies: eligibility, market economy provider, exemption, notification, etc.
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Intellectual Property and Privacy

Our teams have expertise in the fields of information technology and personal data protection, including healthcare data, DLT, Blockchain, Media, artists, authors.      

 

 

 

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Labor & Employment

Labor and employment issues are a strategic element in the life of a company.
This is why the firm has developed this specific expertise under the leadership of Sandra Chapart.

With more than 15 years of experience in French and international groups, both listed and unlisted, our partner has accompanied numerous mergers and acquisitions, corporate transformations, and growth and outsourcing operations as HR Director or Director of Labor Relations.

She brings her strategic, innovative, and 360° vision to transactions with high social stakes. Sandra is recognized for her business insight and her in-depth knowledge of corporate decision-making. She also assists her clients in compliance matters, whether in the development of internal procedures or in the context of internal investigations.

In addition, she advises numerous companies in the renewable energy, industrial, new technologies, services and higher education sectors.

  • Individual labor relations
  • Collective bargaining
  • Reorganization and projects with high social stakes (organizational changes, downsizing, divestitures, acquisitions, growth operations, outsourcing. ..)
  • Urssaf audit and collection
  • Litigation
  • Compliance
  • Social Security
  • Compensation policy/company executives
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Transportation

The firm has developed a real expertise in legal issues related to the transport of people and goods.

The team is involved in all areas of transport: rail, air, sea and river transport, road and motorway transport, electric vehicles and new forms of mobility, intermodal transport, services and innovative solutions for transport companies and passengers.

Our attorneys provide both legal and transactional services to facilitate the implementation of their clients’ projects.

  • Operation of infrastructure, equipment and transport materials
  • Concession agreements / public service delegations / public procurement markets / independent public company / SPL / SEMOP / dedicated companies
  • Organizing authorities
  • Transport provider contracts
  • Occupation of public land
  • Opening to competition
  • State subsidies
  • Safety / security
  • Passenger ticketing and services