People

Jean-Pierre Martel Partner

Paris

He is called on by boards and management teams to advise on mergers, divestitures, corporate acquisitions and restructurings as well as litigations and arbitrations. He is the founding partner of the premier French boutique Rambaud Martel, which combined with Orrick’s global platform in 2006.

Jean-Pierre has recently had a hand in the most significant cross-border deals in the French market. His work includes advising the board of Alstom on the $17 billion sale of its power units to General Electric, counseling L’Oréal on buying back 8% of its own capital from Nestlé, associated with the sale of assets, advising Peugeot’s family on the restructuring of Peugeot SA’s capital which involved China’s Dongfeng Motor Group and the French state, the board of Club Méditerranée in the context of competing take-over bids from China’s Fosun Group and Italia’s Bonomi’s Group, the board of Areva in the financial restructuring of the company.  

Chambers & Partners recognized Jean-Pierre as an “Individual Star” in Corporate/M&A, noting that he is a “seasoned and highly-respected M&A practitioner whose experience covers a wide range of transactional activities.

Jean-Pierre has also developed very substantial litigation and arbitration experience, being ranked Band 1 by Chambers in Dispute Resolution. Most notably, among his successes, the very high-profile Bernard Tapie Case where he has been assisting Consortium de Réalisation, the French government entity tasked with liquidating the assets of Crédit Lyonnais for the French State. Jean-Pierre won rulings from the Paris Court of Appeal in 2015 that withdrew initial arbitral awards that had required CDR to pay €404 million to Tapie’s liquidators and companies and sentenced them to repay CDR the full amount plus interests and costs. He has just succeeded in obtaining visible Court decisions which have released from any criminal liability charged persons with tax fraud.

Jean-Pierre also serves as an arbitrator in ad hoc, ICC and AFA arbitration proceedings.

He speaks and publishes regularly.

Jean-Pierre is the founder and a member of the board of the Institute for Brain and Spinal Cord Disorders - ICM, a state-approved foundation which is on its way to becoming the leading international research center in Europe in the Neurosciences.

Jean-Paule Castagno Partner

Milan

Jean-Paule has more than 20 years of proven experience in white collar and corporate investigation, managing all phases of crisis management, such as internal investigations – including those of a cross-border nature –, the court defence in the context of criminal proceedings and the sanction proceedings before the Supervisory Authorities, in the interests of both individuals and legal entities (according to the D. Legislative Decree no. 231/2001). Jean-Paule advises clients in high-profile and complex cases with specific reference to anti-money laundering, financial crimes, false accounting, bankruptcy offenses, tax crimes, corruption and bribery in both the public and private sector, environmental crimes, occupational health and safety offenses, intellectual property crimes, data protection and privacy crimes/cybercrime, and import/export sanctions.

Thanks to her broad experience in conducting internal investigation and assisting individuals and legal entities in criminal and sanctions proceedings, she has been involved in advising Italian and foreign companies to address potential compliance risks, in performing due diligence focused on risk management and compliance risk in the context of extraordinary transactions and IPOs as well as in preparing and updating compliance programs (adopted under Law No. 231/2001) and in leading relative training to the board and to the employees.

She has also been appointed as member and chairwoman of the surveillance committees (Organismo di Vigilanza) of many Italian and foreign companies.