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Christoph Lange

Christoph Lange helps foreign clients conduct and manage their businesses in the United States. This may entail the formation of companies or the creation of joint ventures, cooperations or strategic alliances. A major aspect of his practice and experience is the acquisition and disposition of business entities, business lines or portfolios of assets, be it in the form of negotiated acquisitions and dispositions, mergers, spin-offs or in the form of private equity investments, management buy-outs, leveraged buy-outs, auctions or acquisitions out of bankruptcy. He also assists his clients with a vast array of business-related issues, including day-to-day legal advice in commercial matters and business contracts.

Mr. Lange’s clients are multinational groups, public and closely held corporations and family-owned companies, and are based in all areas of the industry, including book and magazine publishing, machinery and equipment manufacturing, engineering, chemical/pharmaceutical/biotech, automotive, furniture, distribution and trading, logistics, hardware, fasteners and industrial supplies, as well as electronic equipment and components.

Mr. Lange has authored various articles and contributions addressing corporate and cross-border issues, such as chapters in Gesellschaftsrecht des Auslandes in der Praxis (Beck, 2012) and Mergers & Acquisitions in the United States (Aspen, 2011), and an article on material adverse change clauses and their use in U.S. acquisition agreements (“Material Adverse Effect” und “Material Adverse Change”-Klauseln in amerikanischen Unternehmenskaufverträgen, NZG 2005, 454ff.).

Mr. Lange is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York City Bar and the American Foreign Law Association. He is fluent in German and qualified to practice in Germany.

Some of Mr. Lange’s representative cases include:

• Acquisition by a German producer of reflective materials of a U.S.-based international group of companies in the same line of business in the form of a reverse triangular merger, also involving an evaluation of a vast patent portfolio
• Acquisition of an interest in a U.S. coal fired power plant by a capital assets fund
• Negotiation of industry specific supply, distribution, servicing and technical assistance agreements, turn-key construction agreements and other commercial contracts, including an agreement for the establishment of an oxygen and nitrogen production plant on a client’s manufacturing site
• Acquisitions by a German Neuer Markt bioinformatics company of NASDAQ-listed and privately held biotech companies
• Acquisitions of U.S.-based international, hotel and forest products logistics companies by a Swiss freight forwarding, shipping and logistics group
• Acquisitions by a German-based, international magazine publishing company of two U.S. business magazines and Websites catering to entrepreneurial needs (two separate transactions)
• Acquisition by a German-based, international magazine publishing company of a New York-based women’s magazine group, including extensive antitrust analysis
• Complex licensing agreement for European editions of a leading and high-circulation U.S. magazine to a European consortium, as well as the granting of book and video rights
• U.S. production joint venture between major Japanese, U.S. and German battery makers
• Complex multiparty joint venture between the U.S. arm of a German packaging material manufacturer and a DuPont/Conagra joint venture for new biodegradable packaging materials
• Major outsourcing contract for worldwide logistics services between a North American-based manufacturer of communication equipment and a Swiss freight forwarding, shipping and logistics group
• Acquisitions of a number of regional hardware distribution companies by a privately held German company
• Acquisition of the truck and body division of a U.S. manufacturer of truck cabs by a British conglomerate
• Acquisition of a U.S. automotive (after-market) parts distribution company by a German company
• Acquisitions of several U.S. fastener distribution companies with nationwide branch operations by a German-based international fastener and fittings company
• Acquisition of a U.S. manufacturing subsidiary of industrial anchors by a German company from a Swedish group