New equity partners at GvW: Melanie Eilers and Dr Dominic Köstner

The partners of GvW Graf von Westphalen have admitted Ms Melanie Eilers and Dr Dominic Köstner as equity partners. Both were elected at the partners’ meeting in Berlin. Christof Kleinmann and Dr Robert Theissen were confirmed in their roles as managing partners of the firm for a further term of two years, respectively. Duesseldorf partner Dr Bettina Meyer-Hofmann was appointed as new member of the Partner Council where she will work together with Dr Ronald Steiling and David Wende, the other two members making up this supervisory body. 

Ms Melanie Eilers has been a lawyer at GvW’s Hamburg office since 2011. As a specialist in private construction and architects’ law, Ms Eilers advises on property developer law and construction claims. In addition Ms Eilers, currently practising on a part-time basis, is highly valued by her clients for her legal expertise in German condominium law. Here Ms Eilers primarily advises on real estate transactions and project developments.

Dr Dominic Köstner is a lawyer admitted to the bar in Germany and has been working at GvW’s Shanghai office since 2017. Prior to joining GvW, Dr Köstner worked for several years at the Munich office of a US law firm specialising in M&A. In addition to his expertise in German law, he has a thorough knowledge of the Chinese market and Chinese law. He primarily focuses on advising multinational clients on cross-border M&A transactions with a link to the Chinese market, as well as on Chinese corporate and labour law.

Likewise with effect from 1 January 2022, five “homegrown players” of the firm were appointed as Associate Partners:

Dr Michael Herold advises companies, associations and the public sector out of GvW's Frankfurt office on IT and data protection legal matters as well as on current legal questions of digitalisation.

Uli Hochdorfer (GvW Munich) specialises in complex D&O (Directors & Officers) and PI (Professional Indemnity) liability and advises managers, auditors and tax consulting firms on liability issues.

Dr Michael Kleiber (GvW Hamburg) focuses on public procurement, constitutional as well as commercial administrative and administrative procedure law.

Laurens Klinkert works at the Hamburg office in the corporate / M&A area, advising in particular on cross-border transactions (strategic M&A deals as well as venture capital and private equity).

Moritz Koch is a member of the Hamburg construction law team. There, his expertise in private construction and architects’ law is especially valued in project developments.

We are very pleased to welcome these new additions to our team and wish them every success in their future careers at GvW!