Signeed, Sealed, Weekend – February 27

Welcome to Signed, Sealed, Weekend — our weekly inside track into the Swiss legal market.

Check out the news of the week:

· VISCHER advised FimmCyte, a Swiss biotech developing targeted immunotherapies for chronic fibro-inflammatory diseases, in connection with its research collaboration and option-to-license agreement with Gedeon Richter, a pharmaceutical company specialised in women’s health, with headquarters in Hungary. Managing associate Luzius Zumstein and partner Christian Wyss, both from Vischer’s life science practice, led the firm’s team on the matter.

· Wenger Vieli represented the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU) in three appeals before the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, against arbitration decisions by the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS). The BFU argued that the CAS – and likewise the Players’ Status Chamber of the FIFA Football Tribunal – wrongly affirmed its jurisdiction to hear three labor law claims brought by former coaches against the BFU. The Wenger Vieli team working on the matter included partner Peter Hafner (pictured) and associate Manuela Staudenmann — both from the firm’s litigation practice.

· Schellenberg Wittmer served as Swiss legal counsel to Mexico-based Nemak, a BMV-listed provider of lightweighting solutions for the automotive industry, on its acquisition of GF Casting Solutions’ automotive business, headquartered in Switzerland. The selling part, GF Casting Solutions, is a division of SIX-listed Swiss industrial company Georg Fischer. The Schellenberg Wittmer team on the matter included Lorenzo Olgiati (pictured left), Elia Schunck (pictured right), Maya Melles and Christoph Iten (all corporate/M&A), Josef Caleff (real estate), as well as Petra Spring and Ruba Kassem (both employment).