Johannes Brand is a lawyer, specialist solicitor for international business law and corporate and commercial law and partner at BUSE’s Dusseldorf office. He advises clients comprehensively on corporate law, commercial law and international business law, and on litigation and conflict resolution.
He provides clients with advice on corporate law for limited liability companies (GmbH) and partnerships (Personengesellschaften). When setting up a company, he helps clients to choose the right legal form, to draft the articles of association and the service contracts for managing directors. He assists with so-called “corporate housekeeping” (recurring commercial register registrations for changes, but also related compliance such as the transparency register). He also assists clients in holding shareholders’ meetings and in shareholder disputes. In the phase of termination, he advises clients on liquidation and advises on related conversion measures.
In commercial law, a focus is on advisory and forensic work on distribution issues. He supports commercial agents and authorised dealers in contract negotiations and contract drafting, but also in litigation matters (for example in the assertion of compensation claims). In addition, he advises on the drafting of supply contracts, internationally, in particular with regard to UN sales law.
While purely national issues in commercial and corporate law are part of Johannes Brand’s daily practice, a particular focus of his work is on issues with international relevance – International Business Law (Internationales Wirtschaftsrecht). Cross-border issues in commercial and corporate law are characterised by a multitude of special features, ranging from questions of applicable law to intergovernmental regulations (such as the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, whose relevance is often underestimated), language skills, understanding of cultural particularities and the need to be able to access a network of foreign lawyers.
In addition to his advisory work, he enjoys working for clients in conflict resolution. The focus here is less on the unconditional conduct of contentious legal proceedings than on the resolution of allegedly litigious situations. After all, litigation is often the worst economic option. He conducts unavoidable court proceedings with knowledge not only of the national rules of civil procedure, but in particular of the international regulations which can have an enormous influence on proceedings (starting with the international jurisdiction of the courts called upon).
Johannes Brand is a graduate of the Master’s programme “International and Comparative Law” at Trinity College, Dublin. Previously he studied and worked throughout his legal formation in Bogotá (Colombia), Madrid and Brussels. He advises clients in English and Spanish language and is also involved as a lecturer in the training of legal trainees at the Frankfurt District Court. He takes particular pleasure in working with medium-sized companies in all the above-mentioned areas. As an enthusiastic racing cyclist, he is particularly – but not only – happy to make contacts in this sector.
