Change in the firm’s management / Torsten Fett to follow in Tobias Bürgers’ footsteps as co-speaker of Noerr

Torsten Fett will be a new co-speaker of Noerr from next year. On Thursday, the partners re-confirmed Alexander Ritvay as a co-speaker and elected Frankfurt partner Torsten Fett as Tobias Bürgers’ successor. Tobias Bürgers had already announced at the end of 2017 that he no longer wished to stand for re-election after 15 successful years at the top of the firm. He will continue to be involved in client work and academic activities.

“Tobias Bürgers has played a major role in our firm’s success. It has grown far more strongly than competitors in the field of the top-10 firms in the past few years,” says Alexander Ritvay, emphasising: “This has been helped in particular by the focus on qualitative growth in all matters, which he played a key role in implementing.” Tobias Bürgers has also effectively driven forward Noerr’s national and international position as an independent European law firm, including by successfully opening offices in London (2010), Brussels (2014) and Hamburg (2017), establishing the Noerr brand (2009) and consolidating the firm’s values.

“I would like to express my sincere thanks for our outstanding and fruitful working relationship,” says Alexander Ritvay. “At the same time, I look forward to working with Torsten Fett. Together, we will continue the successful course we have set out on and at the same time set new standards to further consolidate Noerr’s position at the top of a dynamic competitive environment.”

Tobias Bürgers underlines, “It was very satisfying to be able to shape the firm’s destiny as co-speaker over such a long period of time. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone at Noerr for their enormous trust and great help”.

Torsten Fett, who will be taking over the role of co-speaker, has been a member of the partnership for years. He is head of Noerr’s Compliance & Internal Investigations practice group and mainly advises management boards and supervisory boards on company, capital markets and financial supervisory law. His specialisation in compliance advice also focuses on these areas. Torsten Fett also regularly assists banks, financial service providers and businesses in internal investigations and on the implementation of comprehensive compliance programmes as a preventative measure. The head of the Frankfurt office joined Noerr in 2001 and has been a partner since 2008.

By focusing on the qualitative growth of its advisory services and consciously building up strategic growth areas, Noerr has almost trebled its turnover in the last 15 years, gaining a strong foothold in the highest echelon of the top European law firms. Torsten Fett and Alexander Ritvay want to continue this, underlines Torsten: “Our strong position as an independent firm allows us to go our own way, and Noerr will therefore continue to stand for sustained qualitative growth. I’m very much looking forward to my new task and to working with Alexander Ritvay.”

Tobias Bürgers originally took over the office of co-speaker of the firm at the beginning of 2004 (at that time he was joint speaker with Dieter Schenk) and was re-elected four times. Since 2013 he has had joint management responsibility with Alexander Ritvay. He has been at the firm since 1991 and as the responsible partner advises listed companies and large family companies, especially in mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions.

Torsten Fett and Alexander Ritvay’s new period of office starts on 1 January 2019.