C&F bids farewell to retiring long-time partner Erik Schäfer

Düsseldorf, December 20, 2022 – Erik Schäfer will end his active time at Cohausz & Florack (C&F) on December 31, 2022. “He was a real asset to our firm with his preeminent legal expertise and wealth of experience, especially in the courts,” says Ulrike Alice Ulrich, attorney-at-law and partner at C&F.

Erik Schäfer has helped shape the firm since January 1, 1997, as the firm’s first attorney-at-law. With his decades of experience and exceptional expertise in IP law, he has advised notable clients. As a litigator in arbitration proceedings, he argued before all German courts, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the European General Court, and the European Court of Justice. His advisory activity covered all areas of intellectual property law – such as licensing, copyright, employee invention, trademark, and name law – research and development collaborations, other transactions with a strong technological element, and unfair competition issues.

Erik Schäfer also acted as an arbitrator in German and international arbitration proceedings. In the Commission on Arbitration and ADR of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Paris, he chaired and shaped important working groups. He was the founding president of the German-Austrian branch of the Club Español de Arbitraje. His publications mainly focus on issues on the interface between IP, technology, and arbitration.

After studying law at the University of Freiburg and extended stays in France, England, and Mexico during his studies, Erik Schäfer initially worked as a clerk at the Secretariat of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in Paris. He then looked after legal matters in a patent department. In 1993, he became a freelance lawyer in the Dresden office of a Hamburg-based patent and law firm. He was made partner at C&F in 2002. He will remain associated with the firm in extrajudicial dispute resolution within a new framework.

“We would like to express our sincere thanks for his wonderful teamwork over all these years,” says Rebekka Schiffer, attorney-at-law and partner at C&F. “We wish Erik Schäfer all the best for this new phase in his life.”