Philippe Rousseau
I am a dispute resolution partner, providing French and overseas clients with high-quality and cost-effective litigation advice.
Tel: +33 (0)1 42 99 35 67
Email: philippe_rousseau@wragge.com
Services: Dispute Resolution, Intellectual Property
Best brains in...
- Complex legal audits seeking to determine both the causes of the damages claimed and their amounts
- Intellectual property litigation
- Civil company law
Highlight of your career so far?
The signing of a transaction protocol following the initiation of ICC arbitration procedures under which one of the world's distribution giants agreed to buy back a shopping centre from one of our clients for a price higher than its market value, ensuring a comfortable profit for the client. The client had been discouraged from initiating this litigation owing to its complexity and, in particular, the innovative legal concepts relating to the agreements which its adversary failed to perform.
Most challenging job you've ever done?
The order made against a German civil engineering company to pay substantial damages by showing the technical breach it had committed years before. This arbitration resulted in the company paying more than 10 million euros to a co-contractor. The best outcome we could have hoped to obtain was assessed at 2.3 million euros, which at the time was the largest amount ever awarded in such a context in France.
What about outside France?
Assisting an American gas turbine manufacturer in France and in the US when the issue of its liability was claimed after an event which had caused an electrical power plant to shutdown. The challenge was both financial (more than 45 million euros) and commercial (the litigation could have been extended to other clients, for preventive purposes, at any time). We managed to settle after more than three years of proceedings.
What's your definition of going the extra mile... And when have you done it?
For me, going the extra mile is delivering for the client when they are convinced that they will not be able to change the current situation. I managed to enable an East African civil engineering company, which had been subcontracted by an international civil engineering group to construct a motorway between two African countries, to participate in international arbitration in which this civil engineering group came up against the principal State which had terminated the contract early. The State was refusing to pay for the extensive works already undertaken by this subcontractor and was invoking the terms of the principal contract to object to its participation in the ongoing international arbitration, which actually resulted in preventing it from asserting its defence.
Best example of a creative legal solution?
Obtaining, for preventive purposes, recognition that a patent was not infringing any copyright in its use during an almost unheard of procedure in French law - declaratory action. This enabled a Polish client to sell its products on French territory, when it had previously been threatened with legal action for infringement of copyright by a competitor.
What's been written or said about you that you're most proud of?
"You should become my commercial director". This comment was made to me by the chairman of a company following a legal audit. I had managed to convince a legal auditor that this company was not in competition with another company and that, consequently, the accusation of unfair competition brought against it was a false one.
