Alber & Geiger
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| Company type | Government Relations Law firm |
|---|---|
| Industry | Lobbying |
| Founded | 2007 |
| Headquarters | Brussels, Belgium. Berlin, Germany |
Key people | Siegbert Alber, Chairman Andreas Geiger, Managing Partner |
| Website | http://www.albergeiger.com |
Alber & Geiger is a political lobbying agency and a European-based government relations law firm, lobbying the EU institutions in Brussels. The firm has also a litigation practice at the European Court of Justice and has offices in Brussels, Berlin, Beijing and Washington D.C..[1]
Among the firm's partners are the former Advocate General of the European Court of Justice and Vice President of the European Parliament, Prof. Dr. Siegbert Alber, the former Secretary General of the European Commission, Carlo Trojan, the former Albanian Prime Minister Fatos Nano, Gustaaf Borchardt from the European Commission and Andrea Mogni from the EU External Action Service.
The firm was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of leading US lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates by its former European CEO, Dr. Andreas Geiger. Before that, Geiger was Head of the EU Law Center of Ernst & Young in Brussels and attorney at the law firm Taylor Wessing. He wrote a handbook on EU lobbying.[2]
Besides lobbying for corporate clients the firm represents foreign governments. Alber & Geiger received media attention for representing the Bulgarian and the Moroccan governments with the EU Institutions, but also the political opposition of Iran and former government members of Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Serbia.
Alber & Geiger have also represented cases against certain governments on the violation of EU standards, including Panama, Azerbaijan, Serbia, Poland and Moldova. Some of their corporate cases include winning against Microsoft before the EU Commission in the EU "browser war", representing Huawei, Chemours, and Piraeus Bank regarding the financial crisis in Greece, working on the EU plastic bag ban or the state monopolies for gambling in the EU but also representing American energy interests in the Balkans against Russian influence.
For its lobbying work the firm is regularly nominated, including by The Lawyer, London, as "Benelux Law Firm of the Year", by Legal Week, London, as "European Legal Team of the Year" and by European Public Affairs Awards, Brussels, as "Consultancy of the Year".
Controversy
In June 2012, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent, a leading UK newspaper, revealed how senior members of the House of Lords failed to disclose their business interests in a public inquiry. On Lord Plumb's entry in the register of interests he lists his only renumerated employment/profession as 'farming' despite his involvement with the Brussels-based lobbying firm Alber and Geiger since 2007.[3] According to The Independent, Lord Plumb insists, he did not need to register his involvement because he had never been in employment, paid or unpaid by the firm which is typically the case in law firms with non-executive senior members.[4]
References
- ^ "Richter lehnen Extrawurst für Zentralbanker ab" [Judges reject special treatment for central bank workers]. Die Welt (in German). 23 February 2014. Retrieved 2015-07-23.
- ^ https://albergeiger.com/team/dr-andreas-geiger/
- ^ Newman, Melanie; Wright, Oliver (20 June 2012). "Chamber of secrets: House of Lords exposed". Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 2015-07-23.
- ^ Newman, Melanie; Wright, Oliver & McClenaghan, Maeve (20 June 2012). "Undeclared interests: Peers fail to register business roles". Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 2015-07-23.
https://www.zdf.de/dokumentation/zdfinfo-doku/die-unsichtbare-macht-lobby-republik-deutschland-102.html http://blog.wiwo.de/management/2017/03/24/buchauszug-markus-balseruwe-ritzer-lobbykratie-wie-die-wirtschaft-sich-einfluss-mehrheiten-gesetze-kauft/
External links
- Alber & Geiger Web site