Sven Riethmueller is a partner with Foley & Lardner LLP and is a member of the firm’s Private Equity & Venture Capital, Transactional & Securities, International, Latin America, and Life Sciences Collaborations & Licensing Practices. He is also a member of the firm’s Emerging Technologies, Life Sciences and Medical Devices Industry Teams.
Mr. Riethmueller counsels technology clients on complex U.S. domestic and cross-border business transactions typically involving technology and often intellectual property, including mergers, acquisitions and dispositions, corporate finance transactions, divestitures, spin-outs, strategic investments, joint ventures, strategic alliances, as well as structuring, drafting and negotiating strategic collaborations, IP licensing, technology transfers, manufacturing and supply agreements, distribution agreements, and research agreements. He also advises on corporate governance matters.
Mr. Riethmueller’s practice routinely involves cross-border legal affairs, such as representing European and other foreign venture and investment funds, and strategic investors as well as European and United States life sciences, medical device, cleantech, electronics, software/IT, and other technology companies in their investment activities, strategic transactions and business dealings in the United States and abroad.
In addition to structuring and negotiating technology transactions, Mr. Riethmueller provides advice to technology clients on innovative and strategic transactions and business development strategies as well as IP commercialization and asset management strategies.
Mr. Riethmueller regularly speaks on legal, corporate, technology, and intellectual property issues affecting United States and European technology companies and investors with respect to their investment activities and business dealings as well as their technology transfer and IP commercialization strategies in the United States and abroad.
Prior to joining Foley, Mr. Riethmueller practiced at a leading New England-based law firm focused on cross-border transactions and investments.
Prior to returning to private practice, Mr. Riethmueller was vice president & global general counsel to LION bioscience AG, a publicly traded (Nasdaq National Market and Frankfurt Stock Exchange) global solutions provider for the life sciences industry.
In his former capacity as LION’s global general counsel and as a member of its senior management, Mr. Riethmueller was responsible for LION’s worldwide strategic transactions, including cross-border mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance, corporate governance, technology transfers, IP management and licensing/commercialization, biotech and IT research collaborations as well as litigation management and U.S. employment and HR matters.
Prior to joining LION, Mr. Riethmueller practiced in the area of cross-border corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions in New York, London and Frankfurt with the international law firms of Sullivan & Cromwell and Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, where he advised some of the largest global securities and corporate finance offerings of European companies and banks.
Mr. Riethmueller also practiced as a business litigator for a number of years with a leading law firm in the western United States, where he represented U.S. and foreign businesses in litigation before federal and state courts.
Mr. Riethmueller earned his law degree from Columbia University School of Law (J.D., 1994) and his bachelor of arts degree, summa cum laude, from Dartmouth College, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Mr. Riethmueller is admitted to practice in Massachusetts and New York and has been admitted to practice in Nevada, where he is currently on inactive status.
Mr. Riethmueller was born and grew up near Bremen, Germany. He is fluent in German.