PIERRE KIRCH’S BIOGRAPHY

From 35+ years of BigLaw experience to solo practice with a global vision of the law

Pierre Kirch, of American and French nationalities, currently shares his time between homes in France & Belgium. He is a member of the Paris & Brussels Bars.

Recently, he completed a long career (35+ years) as an international business lawyer. For 20 of those years, he was the lead competition/antitrust partner in Europe for one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious multinational law firms. Since leaving BigLaw, he has evolved into a different type of lawyer: A solo practitioner with a Global Vision of the Law.

REFOCUS ON VITAL LAWS & MEDIATIONS

In late 2024, after a long sabbatical for reflection and learning, he renewed his commitment to the law, but as an independent practitioner focused on the vital interests of companies. In Pierre’s new approach, he decided to focus his legal practice on advising companies with regard to their new needs in connection with the transformative effects of new technologies on the legal ecosystem applicable to companies, as formed around the EU’s AI Act of 2024, as well as with regard to new methods of conflict resolution in international business disputes through mediation (acting as both avocat of a party to mediation and as neutral and independent mediator).

Pierre is closely involved in the new legal ecosystem formed around Artificial Intelligence and other digital technologies. Since 2018, he has taught master’s level courses at the Catholic University of Paris (Institut catholique de Paris, “ICP”) on the Law and Artificial Intelligence.

He recently joined Avocap 2.2, a Paris-based cooperative of some 320 lawyers and was appointed to its Board of Directors in 2024.

In the same way, Pierre, although a seasoned litigator before the courts and arbitration tribunals, has decided to forsake old forms of dispute resolution in favor of voluntary mediation procedures, both as an avocat assisting companies in mediation procedures and as a mediator: in recent years, Pierre has trained with and been certified by mediation organizations in various countries (Center of Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), London (2019), Centre de mediation et d’arbitrage de Paris (CMAP), Paris (2019), Institut de formation et de médiation & de négociation (IFOMENE), Paris (2021), MIKK, Berlin (2023, certificate of advanced traing on Cross-Border Family Mediation). During the Covid-19 pandemic, he obtained an advanced master’s degree with highest distinction in “Médiation & Management d’Entreprise” from the Catholic University of Paris (2021), including a French national certification under the title Médiateur et consultant en management de crise (“Mediator and Consultant in Crisis Management”)).

Pierre Kirch

Pierre was born in Santa Barbara, California, educated in the Silicon Valley (Bellarmine College Preparatory, San Jose, California), and graduated from Dartmouth (A.B., Class of 1978).

Prior to embracing the law, he worked in diverse professions, in various countries, ranging from contract management in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (DeMatteis Construction Co.) to journalism in Athens, Greece (the Athens News, erstwhile English language daily published in the Greek capital).

He graduated from law school in France (master’s in law, University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas, 1987, advanced degree in international private law and trade law, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 1988). He also obtained a post-graduate diploma in International Economic Law from the |Université libre de Bruxelles | Free University of Brussels (“ULB”), in 2006 and an advanced master’s (M2) from the Institut Catholique de Paris | Catholic University of Paris (IFOMENE) in Mediation et Management d’Entreprise en2021-2022.

MULTIDISCIPLINARY LEGAL EXPERIENCE IN VARIOUS BUSINESS SECTORS

Pierre began his career with the legacy French international law firm, Siméon Moquet Borde, in 1987 and was named partner of what became Moquet Borde & Associés in 1994. Early on, he took leave from the firm to train with the European Commission’s Legal Service in Brussels (1988-89). He emerged from the experience with a specialist knowledge of the functioning of the EU institutions and of its internal market legislation, and, in particular, of EU competition/antitrust law. In 2004, his legacy French firm was absorbed into Paul Hastings LLP, one of the world’s biggest and most prestigious multinational law firms (www.paulhastings.com). Perre served as Paul Hastings’ lead competition/antitrust partner in Europe for some 20 years, practicing out of the firm’s offices in Brussels, Paris, London & Frankfurt.

During this 20-year period, Pierre worked for/with or directly against some of the world’s biggest and most powerful companies in the world, including all of the American GAFAM groups (with the exception of Facebook/Meta), Société Générale, Sodexo, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba, GIC (Singapore’s sovereign fund), Chinese Overseas Shipping Co (COSCO), and many others across a palette of product and services industries and cultures. He negotiated on behalf of or against these same companies with the various European competition authorities: DG Competition of the European Commission in Brussels, the Autorité de la concurrence in Paris, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in London. He litigated before the French Civil and Commercial Courts, before the European Union Courts in Luxembourg, and before international arbitral tribunals (mostly under the aegis of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce).

At the same time as he was acting in such matters as a competition/antitrust specialist, Pierre remained close to the heart of the business law world as a generalist practitioner. For years, he defended Lenovo against a series of consumer activist lawsuits attacking its business model of computer sales with pre-installed software programs only (and won). Along with his pluri-disciplinary team, he represented one of the Saudi royal family’s most senior officials in defamation proceedings against France Televisions, the national chain (and won). During the 20-year period as a partner of Paul Hastings, Pierre also remained at the heart of the law through pro bono representations. Starting in 2010, he was legal advisor to the CEO and Board of Directors of ClientEarth, the London-based environment-defense NGO which now has offices throughout the world, acting in some 15 or so cases on its behalf before the EU Courts in Luxembourg. In 2015, he headed an international team of some 75 lawyers to research and draft the Defence Handbook for Journalists and Bloggers for the Paris-based NGO, Reporters without Borders. This pro bono project directed by Pierre as a team effort won the Reuters TrustLaw Foundation Collaboration Award presented in London in September 2015 and the Paris Bar’s Pro Bono Team award presented in Paris in October 2015.

ACCOLADES & RECOGNITIONS

Recognition over the years and on various occasions as a leading individual practitioner in the competition / antitrust field for France by publications such as Chambers Global, Who's Who Legal: The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers, Guide to the World’s Leading Competition and Antitrust Lawyers, Legal 500 EMEA and the French review, Décideurs Stratégie Finance.

ACADEMIA, AUTHORSHIP & SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Frequent speaker and writer on Artificial Intelligence and the Law, International Mediation, and EU and competition law issue in various fora in Europe, Asia and in the United States.
Since 2018, adjunct professor in joint international master’s program (Catholic University of Paris / St. Mary’s University London), course entitled “Multidisciplinary Approach to a Law of Artificial Intelligence” and since 2021, adjunct professor in new two-year master’s program in Law and Artificial Intelligence (course entitled “Artificial Intelligence and Business Operations”).
Between 2013-2016, Pierre presided over the annual International Global Merger Control Round Table of which he is co-founder, organized by the legal journal Concurrences in Paris.
In March 2013, panelist at the first annual symposium of the China Institute of International Antitrust and Investment in Beijing.
Twice appointed (2008/2010) a faculty member at the biannual International Cartel Workshop, bringing together regulators and leading practitioners from all over the world and co-sponsored by the ABA Section of Antitrust Law and International Bar Association.
From the time of his first major article published by the Revue trimestrielle du droit européen in 1993, Pierre has published, as author or as co-author, more than 50 articles in professional reviews or as co-author of various full volume publications, on a variety of legal and regulatory subjects.
Amongst his various contributions, as author or co-author: Droit européen des affaires (Dunod, 1998), The Legal Implications of the Millennium Bug (chapter on France) (Kluwer Law International, 1999), Economic Analysis of State Aid Rules: Contributions and Limits ( Lexxion , 2007), French Business Law in Translation (Juris Publishing, 2e éd, 2010, in collaboration with George Bermann, Professor at Columbia Law School, New York).
More recently, Pierre Kirch is co-author of Algorithmic Antitrust (Springer, 2022). Indeed, during the course of his career, Pierre has endeavored to analyze cutting edge subjects touching on the intersection between technology and the law.

In recent times, having entered into the realm of international mediation, Pierre has broadened his approach, writing regularly on the different facets of international mediation, in particular via publication of two articles in the Corporate Mediation Journal entitled thus: « Rereading Fisher & Ury : Identifying the Advantages of Mediation in the Specific Setting of a Competition Law Dispute » (ed. 4/2019) and « Recourse to Mediation in Times of Crisis : Is Business Ready for a new Approach that Saves Time and Preserves Relationships, also In the Field of Competition Law » (ed. 1/2020). Very recently, he contributed an in-depth analysis of the relationship between mediation and arbitral procedures in matters falling within the procedures of the International Chamber of Commerce: contribution published by Juris Publishing in 2022 in a volume of essays: “ Reflections on International Arbitration : Essays in Honor of Professional George Bermann.”

PROFESSIONAL & COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Member of the Paris & Brussels Bars, the American Bar Association (ABA), the International Bar Association (IBA), the Union internationale des Avocats (UIA), the International Technology Law Association (ITechLaw), Associazione internazionale Giuristi di Lingua Italiana (AIGLI).

Former lecturer in EU competition law at leading French business schools, Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC) and ESCP-EAP (Executive MBA) (1990-2006)
Former legal advisor to President and Board of Trustees of London-based NGO, ClientEarth (2010- 2019), and former Chairman of its Litigation Review Committee (pro bono) (2017-2019) (https://www.clientearth.org/about/who-we-are/our-team/advisors/pierre-kirch/)
Avocat for Paris-based NGO, Reporters without Borders, in 2014-2015, head of pro bono group of some 70 volunteer lawyers from around the globe for the preparation of a new electronic publication entitled Defence Handbook for Journalists and Bloggers. Once published online in 2015, this handbook result in a first-ever practical compendium of available legal sources, worldwide, on rights of freedom of expression and freedom of information principles in international law (as a pro bono project, it will obtain, at a ceremony held in London in September 2015, the Thomson Reuters/Trustlaw Collaboration Award, as well as, in October 2015, the Pro Bono Prize for team projects of the Paris Bar).
Member, since 1996, Cercle de l’Union interalliée, Paris
Member of the Executive Committee, American Club of Paris (2024 onward)
Honorary president, Dartmouth Club of France

ABOUT PIERRE KIRCH