Prof. Dr. Gerhard H. Wächter

Gerhard was born in Saarlouis/Saar. He attended Dillingen/Saar’s scientifically orientated secondary school, and completed his military duty with the German Airforce in Pinneberg and Landsberg am Lech. From 1976 to 1981 he studied law and philosophy in Giessen and Marburg. From 1982 to 1983 he was University Assistent (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) in the law department of Bielefeld University, where he studied with the well-known sociologist Niklas Luhmann. From January to July 1984, he was Visiting Research Associate at the New School for Social Research, New York. As part of his legal training (between the 1st and 2nd state examination) in 1987, Gerhard completed three six months’ placements: with the Berlin State Court, with the German Federal Cartel Office in Berlin, and with the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Tokyo.

He obtained his PhD in 1987 from the Johann-Wolfgang-von-Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main (Prof. Dr. Klaus Lüderssen) with a doctoral thesis on the theory and history of criminal law. After the second state examination he joined Baker & McKenzie as an associate in Frankfurt/Main. His practice focused on international M&A and commercial and post M&A litigation. As one of the first West German lawyers, Gerhard joined the main office of the Treuhandanstalt, the German privatization agency for East German businesses, in Berlin in October 1990. In this capacity, he was involved in many privatizations, headed a working group of privatization lawyers and contributed conceptually to the development of the Treuhandanstalt’s legal privatization practice, and published leading contributions in the field.

In May 1992 he co-founded a lawfirm, which was later to become “Waechter Rechtsanwälte”. He has represented clients in more than hundred M&A transactions and nearly two hundred litigation or arbitrations cases, of which the vast majority was related to M&A. Gerhard has authored the leading textbook „M & A Litigation“ (4th ed. 2022) and published extensively on many questions of M&A and other business law issues. He frequently speaks on these at conferences and for commercial seminar organizers and teaches on them and other business law subjects at Leipzig University. He had been appointed notary public in 1998 and resigned from this office in 2016.

Gerhard has always liked to move heavy technical machinery, from driving 38-tons-trucks (to co-finance his studies) to riding a motorcycle through the US and flying and co-owning an airplane (IFR).

Gerhard has a son who studied business, attended a film school and is now doing his MBA, each in China.