About

Representing Deutsche Bahn (DB), one of the leading global mobility and logistic companies, is a legal department with 150 lawyers working from Germany and 100 lawyers stationed in foreign offices around the world. The team is known for its top-tier expertise in all areas of law relevant to DB’s interests. Under the leadership of group general counsel Dr Alexander Gommlich and his executive team, DB’s lawyers have handled a spate of complex regulatory cases over recent years and played a central role in key international M&A projects.

Recent developments include Gommlich’s creation in 2017 of an innovative competence centre for digitalisation law topics, which provides comprehensive legal advice in support of challenging projects for the adoption of ground breaking technology for automated trains, autonomous buses, new mobility solutions for “smart city living”, IoT and artificial intelligence applications. By adopting an agile team approach – guided by the principles of non-hierarchy, self-organisation and transparency the competence center ensures hands-on legal advice and is an integral part of DB’s digitalisation and new technology projects. Furthermore, with the strong legal drive of DB’s lawyers, the company has become a pioneer and European leader in the private enforcement of antitrust claims. Since 2013, the competition litigation and antitrust economics legal team has successfully recovered approximately €500m in claims for damages suffered through violations of antitrust law in more than 40 settlements. Prominent cases include the rail track, escalator and elevator and coffee cartels in Germany as well as the carbon brushes cartel in the UK. Further claims for damages totalling over €1bn are being actively pursued in six different jurisdictions, further evidencing the scope and capability of DB’s in-house legal professionals.