Dirk Uwer specialises in public commercial law, compliance and white-collar criminal law. He has been recognised many times as an outstanding lawyer for public law and regulated industries in international and national legal rankings. Dirk advises investors, companies and corporations from a wide range of sectors on public law and regulatory issues in corporate transactions and restructurings. As an experienced procedural and litigation lawyer, he represents his clients in regulatory proceedings and litigation through all specialised courts. His broad practice includes fundamental legal matters and proceedings in European, constitutional and administrative law as well as environmental law, energy law, healthcare/life sciences, foreign trade and investment control law, data protection and privacy law, compliance, internal investigations and corporate social responsibility. In these business sectors he defends companies and board members in public investigations and criminal proceedings.

As a member of Legislative Assembly (Satzungsversammlung) of the German Federal Bar as well as of the Professional Law Committee and the European Committee of the German Bar Association, he also deals intensively with the law governing the legal profession and the professional laws of other liberal professions. He advises clients from a wide range of business sectors on the law of money laundering prevention.

His firm belief in an efficient, proportionate, risk-adequate and non-interventionist regulation of all economic sectors is also reflected in Dirk Uwer's work against traditional, but outdated monopoly and oligopoly structures in over-regulated markets, which are contrary to constitutional and European law; in this regard, he has conducted several constitutional complaint proceedings before the Federal Constitutional Court and regularly provides expert opinions on legislative projects.

In his areas of expertise, Dirk Uwer is committed to, and enthusiastic about, academic research and teaching and, as the author of over 130 publications, also a prolific writer.

Career

  • Admitted to bar 1999
  • University of Trier (Dipl.-Jur.) and Humboldt-University of Berlin (Dr. iur.)
  • German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer (Mag.rer.publ.)
  • Northumbria University Newcastle (LL.M.)
  • Università degli Studi di Ferrara
  • Foreign Associate, London, 2001-2002
  • Honorary Professor at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences
  • Lecturer at the Free University of Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin 
  • Lecturer at the Distance-Learning University in Hagen

Publications

Over 130 publications on various issues of Public Law, Constitutional and European Law.

A complete list of publications can be downloaded here.

Memberships

Member of the Lawyers' Parliamentary Assembly (Satzungsversammlung) of the German Federal Bar (Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer)

Member of the Board, Düsseldorf Bar Council, 2015 - 2023

Member of the Advisory Board, University of St. Gallen Law School

Legislative Committees Professional Law and Europe of the German Bar Association

Board Member of the Association for promoting the Institute for Environmental and Technology Law of the University of Trier

Member of the Advisory Board, Research Institute for Gambling and Betting Activities, Sankt Augustin

Research Centre Environmental Law, Berlin

Environmental Law Society, Berlin

German Lawyers' Association

Association of German Jurists

Association of Law and Political Sciences, Düsseldorf

German-Italian Lawyers' Association, Augsburg

Above and beyond

Liberal democrat, sceptic, critic of etatism, connoisseur of British and Italian culture. His belief: Se vogliamo che tutto rimanga com’è, bisogna che tutto cambi. (If we want everything to stay the way it is, everything will have to change. Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Il Gattopardo, 1958.) His motto and, from time to time, his consolation: Ordo renascendi est crescere posse malis. The essence of novation is to grow with adversities. Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo sive Iter Gallicum, 410.)