Automotive manufacturers, suppliers and distributors: secure your strategic projects and enhance your innovations in a rapidly evolving sector
The automotive industry is undergoing profound transformation: energy transition, connected and autonomous vehicles, digitalisation of sales, and international restructuring.
We help our clients turn these changes into secure and profitable projects by anticipating risks and protecting their innovations. Cornet Vincent Ségurel supports automotive stakeholders in structuring and managing their strategic initiatives, ensuring both operational and legal success.
Which industry stakeholders do we support?
We advise:
- Manufacturers and suppliers: securing industrialisation, R&D and strategic partnerships
- Distribution networks and dealers: structuring contracts and managing network operations
- Start-ups and technology providers: protecting innovation and ensuring regulatory compliance
- International groups and subsidiaries: coordinating global operations, supporting external growth strategies, and protecting brands and innovations
Thanks to our in-depth sector expertise, we deliver tailored solutions aligned with each stakeholder’s specific challenges.
Strategic and legal challenges
Turning industry transformation into secure and high-performing projects
Automotive stakeholders face key structural challenges:
- Securing relationships between manufacturers, suppliers, subcontractors and distributors
- Structuring and managing distribution and franchise networks in compliance with competition law
- Supporting industrial and workforce restructurings in an international context
- Protecting and enhancing technological innovations (connected vehicles, autonomous systems, embedded software)
- Managing growth, divestment and reorganisation transactions
- Anticipating and handling strategic disputes affecting the value chain
Automotive projects: comprehensive support
We assist at every stage of your projects:
- Upstream: defining legal and operational strategy, structuring partnerships, anticipating risks
- During: negotiating and drafting agreements, managing operations, coordinating stakeholders
- Downstream: securing contractual relationships, handling disputes and ensuring long-term implementation
This approach ensures that projects are secure, efficient and consistent from inception through to operation.
Recent example of support
Structuring an automotive distribution network
We assisted an automotive client with:
- Securing a strategic partnership and optimising its rollout
- Negotiating commercial and distribution agreements across multiple markets
- Establishing a structured and operational franchise network
- Protecting and enhancing innovations and know-how
- Creating subsidiaries and structuring the group to support growth
Result: efficient deployment while safeguarding strategic assets.
Our team’s strengths
A cross-functional approach aligned with industrial and commercial realities
- Corporate law – M&A – Private equity: group structuring, acquisitions, partnerships and strategic transactions
- Competition – Distribution – Contracts: securing networks, commercial relationships and competitive practices
- Employment law: restructuring, international mobility and workforce management
- Intellectual property – Tech – Data: protection and enhancement of automotive innovation
- Restructuring & distressed companies: support for complex projects and sensitive situations
- Real estate law: industrial sites, dealerships and logistics
- Compliance – Criminal law – Ethics: prevention of regulatory risks
- Litigation – Arbitration – Mediation: efficient resolution of sector-specific disputes
Do you have an automotive project?
Secure your strategic initiatives and maximise the value of your innovations
We support manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and start-ups in:
- Structuring your strategic projects
- Protecting your innovations and know-how
- Managing your operations with efficiency and legal certainty