Romain Nairi advises clients doing business in France on all aspects of French employment law.

Mr. Nairi helps clients navigate the continuously evolving employment law landscape. In particular, he provides advice in the context of:

  • Transactions
  • Litigation and pre-litigation matters
  • High-stakes employment matters such as reorganizations, social plans, senior executives’ issues, as well as collective agreement implementation

Mr. Nairi brings a deep and focused knowledge of French employment law in a commercial context, drawn from his academic background both in France and the UK, and his prior professional experience as an in-house counsel at Total, and subsequently as an attorney in a highly reputed French law firm. Given his broad employment law experience, Mr. Nairi provides global clients with a cross-border sensibility and can advocate effectively before judges and adverse attorneys in a courtroom, works councils and unions, or senior executives, helping to spot, avoid, or mitigate potentially costly situations.

Mr. Nairi’s experience includes advising on the employment aspects of the following transactions:

  • Lead investor a16z (Andreessen Horowitz) on the €385 million Series A financing round of Mistral AI, a French startup specializing in generative artificial intelligence
  • GGW Group on the acquisition of Assurever
  • Bain Capital Private Equity in its negotiations to sell Parts Holding Europe (PHE), a leading European digitally-enabled automotive parts distributor, to the D’Ieteren Group
  • Vivalto Santé, the third-leading group of private hospitals in France, in its acquisition by Vivalto Partners alongside a consortium of minority shareholders
  • Karnov Group in its offer to acquire the legal information businesses of Thomson Reuters in Spain and Wolters Kluwer in Spain and France
  • SK Capital in its acquisition of SEQENS
  • ICG in its sale of a majority stake in Gerflor, manufacturer and marketer of vinyl flooring solutions and wall finishes, to Cobepa
  • Ardian in its acquisition of a majority stake in the Santé Cie Group, a specialist in home medical assistance
  • Bridgepoint in its sale of eFront, the world’s leading end-to-end alternative investment management software and solutions provider to BlackRock

Bar Qualification

  • Avocat (Paris)

Education

  • Postgraduate Diploma in Law, ESSEC Business School, 2008
  • LL.M., Queen Mary, University of London, 2007
  • Postgraduate Law Degree, University of Versailles, 2006
  • Graduate Law Degree, University of Paris X (Nanterre), 2005

Languages Spoken

  • French
  • English