Mr Francis Kass > Arendt & Medernach > Luxembourg, Luxembourg > Lawyer Profile

Arendt & Medernach is well-versed across the plethora of cutting-edge technology impacting the financial services sector and provides ‘very skilled and responsive’ advice to traditional funds and banking clients on the adoption of fintech products, as well as for start-ups and entrepreneurs delivering the technology. Team head Marc Mouton is the ‘go-to person for fintech advice,’ including in the context of blockchain technology and payment services. As part of his broad investment management expertise, Francis Kass has recently been involved in the establishment of funds investing in crypto assets.

The ‘commercially focused’ team at Arendt & Medernach has ‘an excellent understanding of market practice as well as local regulation and CSSF expectations’, ensuring that it is a very popular choice among fund managers on their structuring and regulatory requirements. Although retail funds (including UCITS) continue to inform a significant proportion of its workflow, the team is also adept at advising across a range of alternative strategies, including as these relate to private debt and private equity. Here, the firm has been at the vanguard of developments in the market, which has seen it very well-placed to generate work from clients on newer structures including “Evergreen Funds”, as well as the continued push towards impact investing. ‘Exceptional’ team head Gilles Dusemon has been pivotal to the firm’s success at driving change in the alternative space and has developed an excellent sense of “what is market”, not only through his fee-earning work but also as a result of his role as co-chairman of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry’s Private Equity and Venture Capital Working Group. The ‘dynamic, intelligent and creative’ Adrian Aldinger is also very well regarded in the alternative space, particularly for the structuring of private equity and debt funds. Florence Stainier has an ‘excellent knowledge of Luxembourg regulation, practice and regulator expectations’ and is one of the driving forces behind the firm’s market-leading UCITS offering. Other key practitioners include Michèle Eisenhuth, who covers a mix of UCITS and alternatives; Isabelle Lebbe, who is an expert at advising on ESG-related matters and on disputes in the sector; Stefan Staedter, the ‘go-to-person for ELTIF matters’; Nicolas Bouveret, who is ‘very knowledgeable on all things private debt’; ‘seasoned veteran’ Francis Kass; and firm co-chair Claude Niedner.