Draft:Bertrand Malmendier

Bertrand Malmendier (born 15 January, 1968) is a Franco-German lawyer who often advises clients from Berlin and Sofia from the background, mainly in the fields of business and politics. Malmendier is known as a lawyer for the Russian company Rosneft and pro-Russian individuals.

Origin
Malmendier is the son of Hans-Joachim Malmendier, a Dutchman from the German-speaking province of Limburg, and Andrée Malmendier, a Frenchwoman born Richard. During the Cold War, his parents worked for the French Protective Force in the western part of Berlin. According to media reports, his father was a high-ranking military officer who had professional dealings with the Soviet occupation forces..

Education
Malmendier attended an English elementary school and then the French Gymnasium in Berlin. He then studied medicine, philosophy and law in Lyon, Geneva and Berlin. He passed both state law exams in 1994 and 1997 at the top of his class. After graduation, he worked as an assistant to the Chair of Political Science, Constitutional and Administrative Law at Free University. In 2000, he received his doctorate with a constitutional history thesis on the history of public law, which focused on freedom in the legal sense and its protection against state encroachment. The doctorate was sponsored by the German National Academic Foundation and the thesis was published in 2003.

Career
After working as a lawyer for four years, Malmendier became self-employed in 2002 and founded his own law firm on Kurfürstendamm in Berlin. To date, his focus has been on international business law, real estate, construction and infrastructure, energy, technology transfer and policy-related advice. His firm made a name for itself in numerous projects and transactions, such as the redevelopment of Leipziger Platz in Berlin after German reunification, the conversion of Babelsberg Studio into a stock corporation and the restructuring of the listed Pearl Gold AG.

Malmendier advises corporations and investors on relocations and expansions in the liberalized markets of Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia in both directions. He held or holds various supervisory board, advisory board, and chair positions, e.g., at Studio Babelsberg AG, Godewind Immobilien AG and Corestate Capital Management S.A. Malmendier also accompanied the eviction of the left-wing autonomous cultural center "Köpi" in Berlin-Mitte, which was occupied from 1990 to 2021.

Malmendier has been a member of the Franco-German Business Circle since 1997 and currently serves as its Secretary General. He is also a member of the German-Russian Forum and various other associations.

In 2022, Malmendier moved to Bulgaria, where he founded a consulting firm for global and cross-border legal, political and strategic issues, but remained with his law firm Malmendier Legal as its namesake and senior partner.

Connections to Russia
From 2006 on, Malmendier headed the European representation of the think tank "Zentrum für sozial-konservative Politik" (Center for Social Conservative Policy), which is connected to the Russian ruling party United Russia and, in the form of a political foundation, manages more than 20 regional offices in the Russian Federation from its Moscow headquarters, as well as foreign offices in Berlin and Singapore. Malmendier campaigned for an improvement and expansion of European-Russian relations and, at economic and energy conferences at the invitation of the German government, emphasized the advantages and security of gas supplies from Russia. His Russia-oriented activities and his alleged close ties to Russia's President Vladimir Putin brought him criticism on several occasions.

Together with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, in 2008 he established the German-Russian "Zukunftsforum Schloss Wackerbarth" (Future Forum Castle Wackerbarth) in Saxony, whose patron was the former Prime Minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich, and later the president of the state parliament, Matthias Rößler. Malmendier also participated in the Petersburg Dialogues in his capacity as the think tank's Europe representative.

In 2010/2011 he advised on the acquisition of Klausner-Werke by the Russian oligarch Boris Zingarevich's company Ilim Timber Industry, the largest Russian direct investment in Germany. He also advised VTB, Russia's second largest bank, on the planning, construction and financing of the VTB Arena in Moscow for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

In 2022, German magazine Focus wrote, based on a person working in Malmendier's circle of influence, that no major Russian transaction in Germany was said to have bypassed Malmendier.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Malmendier attracted attention by standing up for Viktor Medvedchuk, a prominent Ukrainian pro-Russian opposition politician imprisoned in Ukraine, and went all the way to the European Court of Human Rights doing so. Malmendier succeeded in September 2022 - with the mediation of Albania, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - in securing the release of Medvedchuk in exchange for numerous members of the Azov battalion.

Also in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the German government took control of the Schwedt oil refinery in September 2022 and placed Rosneft Deutschland under the trusteeship of the German industry regulator. However, Rosneft still retained 54.17% of the shares in the refinery. Shortly afterwards, Rosneft commissioned Malmendier to protect its interests. He appealed against the decision, arguing that Rosneft Deutschland had always fulfilled its obligations. By order of Rosneft Malmendier also lobbied for the lifting of sanction measures against its German refineries PCK in Schwedt, Bayernoil in Vohburg and MiRO in Karlsruhe - arguing, among other things, that Russian state influence on the company was only slight – but was defeated before the Federal Administrative Court. Malmendier contested the judgment and expressed in an interview that it was against the German constitutional and legal order.

In this context, Malmendier also campaigns for the survival of the 'Russian House' in Berlin, the largest state cultural institution of Russia in Europe.

Personal life
Malmendier is a member of the German party CDU.

He has a daughter and a son and is an active mountaineer, skier and ski tourer; he is involved in various sports clubs on a voluntary basis. At the end of 2019, Malmendier narrowly survived a severe avalanche in Siberia at Lake Baikal together with Kurt Lauber from Zermatt, the "guardian of the Matterhorn"

Publications (selection)

 * New Russian Energy Efficiency Act. In: Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law, 29 (2), 2011, pp. 177–208. doi: 10.1080/02646811.2011.11435262
 * Deutsch-russische Joint Ventures: Eine gelebte Modernisierungspartnerschaft. In: A. V. Zverev (ed.): Die Wirtschafts- und Handelsbeziehungen zwischen Russland und Deutschland: Geschichte – Gegenwart – Perspektiven, Berlin 2011, pp. 224–250.
 * The Liability of International Development Banks in Procurement Proceedings: The Example of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IRBD), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). In: Public Procurement Law Review, Issue 4, 2010, pp. 135–154.
 * Unbundling Germany’s Energy Network. In: Journal of Energy and Natural Resources Law, Vol. 24, No. 3, August 2006, S. 362–383.
 * Vom wohlerworbenen Recht zur verrechtlichten Freiheit. Forderungen an das Öffentliche Recht der Gegenwart aus der geschichtlichen Entwicklung des Staatsabwehranspruchs. Duncker & Humblot Verlag, Schriften zum öffentlichen Recht, Vol. 915, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 2003.
 * together with Max Uebe: Handbuch des Energiewirtschaftsrechts. Bundesanzeiger-Verlag, Cologne 2002.