ALAIN COBLENCE is an international corporate lawyer and a member of both the New York and Paris Bars since 1975. COBLENCE & ASSOCIATES (formerly Coblence & Warner) was founded in 1981. The firm has maintained offices in New York City and Paris since its inception.

Born in New York of French parents, he was raised in both countries and became an attorney in France in 1970. After practicing in Paris for several years, he passed the Bar Exam and opened his own New York law firm in 1975 to specialize in the representation of French corporate clients in the United States and of American corporate clients in France.

The firm has an extremely varied corporate practice. Because of its international orientation and the monthly travels of Alain Coblence to Paris and other European capitals, the firm has developed a particular expertise advising French and other European-based clients with regard to their investments in the United States and American clients in their investments in France and in Europe. Carefully limiting its size, the firm has made a conscious effort over the years to maintain the cohesive team which provides the personalized and focused legal representation that its European clients have come to rely upon.

The firm’s practice relates to the representation of clients in a broad range of business and commercial matters, with a special emphasis on corporate law and intellectual property. The great variety of matters handled by this generalist firm has often allowed it to assume a role of “outside general counsel” to its small and medium size clients and of “special counsel to the CEO” to its larger clients, on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the issues on which the firm is regularly consulted: mergers and acquisitions, real estate transactions, trademark and copyright licensing matters, entertainment law and literary property, distribution and agency arrangements, shareholders rights and corporate governance, employment law and international tax planning.

The client base of the firm is varied and includes companies which count among the leaders of the following fields of activities: luxury goods, fashion and cosmetics; new media and high technology; press groups, publishing houses and electronic media; advertising and publicity agencies; television and audio-visual products. Although under French rules of ethics, we are not at liberty to divulge the identity of our clients, the press has widely reported that the firm handled some of the major French acquisitions in the United States such as Charles of the Ritz by Yves Saint Laurent, the Diamandis Group by Hachette-Filipacchi or Austin-Nichols by Pernod-Ricard.

Alain Coblence has published articles and lectured on several of the areas of the law in which he has acquired a unique expertise, particularly on comparative law and the contrasts between Common Law and Civil Law, in Europe, the United States and China.

He is the proponent and the author of a reform of the U.S. Copyright Law introduced on the floor of Congress in March 2007, which could soon allow for the first time in the United states the protection of the intellectual property of Fashion Designs.

Alain Coblence has also participated in numerous international conferences dedicated to matters related to transatlantic relations and to the cooperation between the United States and Europe at the invitation of the Council of Europe, the European Commission, Unesco or the European Democracy Forum.....................................................