Our Team
Washington, D.C.
Brussels
Paris
London
Madrid
Singapore
Advisory Team and Alumni
Bertrand Alexis
Blake Redding
Robert Walton
Michael Whitener
VistaLaw International is a global network of law firms, individual attorneys and consultants. The people on our team are members of the bars indicated in the profiles below.
John J. Smith
Principal
Washington, D.C.
John has extensive experience in telecommunications, e-commerce and information technology law, regulation and policy, as well as general business law, complex commercial transactions, and corporate governance. He has served in various senior management positions, including in-house counsel and strategic advisor to a major computer network company and as General Counsel and Secretary to subsidiaries of Oracle and General Electric. In these roles, he has dealt with a range of commercial, transactional and domestic and international regulatory compliance matters, including large-scale procurements, software development and licensing, network management and outsourcing arrangements, and intellectual property. John is a graduate of Columbia University and the George Washington University School of Law. He is a member of the Bars of Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and the District of Columbia.
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Alfred S. Farha
Principal
Brussels
Alfred is a dual-qualified lawyer (U.S. & Swiss) experienced in diverse legal systems, cultures and industries. He has gained extensive senior executive in-house experience in large multinational companies, most recently as Chief Legal Officer and Secretary of a NYSE listed automotive technology producer headquartered in Europe. His industry knowledge includes besides automotive, electronics design and manufacturing processes, engineering, software and hardware related services, Internet and telecommunications infrastructure, and patent generation and industrialization. Areas of legal expertise include cross-border contracts and joint ventures, corporate structuring and restructuring, mergers and acquisitions, competition law (global merger clearance as well as antitrust and cartel law), ethics and compliance, alternative dispute resolution, IP portfolio management, licensing and litigation strategy. Alfred is bilingual in English and German, as well as fluent in Spanish, French and Italian. He has represented clients with business interests in diverse EU jurisdictions including setting up greenfield corporate operations and structures in Germany, most recently in connection with a 100 million euro acquisition of a 630-year-old German automotive supplier for a major Indian global technology business active in the aerospace and automotive sectors. Alfred has publicly presented on topics ranging from global competition law to intellectual property protection and ethics, compliance and anti-bribery and co-authored a book on Swiss Company Law. Alfred is a member of the New York Bar and a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of Zurich.
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Richard E. Smith
Principal
Singapore
Rick has more than 25 years of general corporate and commercial law experience in the financial services, insurance and consumer products marketing/manufacturing industries. He has demonstrated expertise in the negotiation and documentation of complex international and domestic transactions, management of all legal and regulatory aspects of market entry projects and implementation of corporate governance and compliance policies and procedures. Rick has served as senior in-house counsel for several global companies, most recently as Senior Vice President and General Counsel of New York Life International, a wholly owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company. Rick subsequently established his own law firm, where notable projects included assisting a leading global insurance services provider launch operations in the India market. Rick has extensive Asia-Pacific experience, having lived and worked in Singapore and Hong Kong as a member of a major multinational's regional management team. Rick’s private practice experience includes working as an associate for Kirland & Ellis. Rick is a member of the Illinois Bar and a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law, where he was on the board of editors of the law review.
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Kristine Karsten
Principal
Paris
Kristine is qualified to practice both in New York and in France. After the Arthur Andersen group acquired the law firm of which she was a partner in 1991, she became the head, successively, of the intellectual and industrial property law group, the real estate group and the banking and finance group within the 600+ lawyer Andersen Legal. Kristine later headed the banking and finance department and also co-chaired the real estate department of the UK law firm Eversheds. In 2006, she moved to Affina Legal, where she advised a number of international corporate groups, often in the context of complex, cross-border transactions. Kristine teaches business law in the accredited English-language MBA program offered by the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM) and sits as a member of the Institute of World Business Law of the International Chamber of Commerce.
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Nicholas Bell
London
Nicholas has worked primarily in the telecommunications and technology sectors. He spent fifteen years with Cable & Wireless, where he handled a wide range of commercial transactions supporting the UK business. He gained international experience working on the wholesale side of the business and managed a number of complex disputes with customers. More recently he has worked as a commercial consultant at Misys plc, concluding major agreements for the licensing and support of software both in the UK and internationally. Having served in legal and commercial roles, Nicholas has considerable experience in managing business risks. He is a graduate of Oxford University.
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Marta Pérez Dorao
Madrid
Marta is business and IT lawyer with broad experience in M&A and intellectual property. She served for ten years as General Counsel and Secretary to the Board of Directors of Meta4 Group, which operates high growth businesses in the areas of social Internet services, permission email media, and electronic retailing. Marta was responsible for corporate and operational legal issues globally and managed the internal legal team, as well as external law firms in all of the countries in which the company operated. Recently she served as manager of corporate legal services of Grupo Softland, an ERP software company in Spain and Latin America. She graduated in the Granada University and has a postgraduate degree in computer law and legal information systems. She attended the General Management Program (PDG) at IESE Business School in 2005.
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Advisory Team
Several VistaLaw attorneys have taken roles in the corporate and public policy sectors, but they continue to work with the firm in an advisory capacity.
Bertrand Alexis, a VistaLaw co-founder, was a principal in our Paris office from 2007 until 2009, when he joined the Qatar Telecommunications Group. He is currently Senior Director, Mergers & Acquisitions at Qtel International in Doha, Qatar, where his responsibilities include M&A and corporate governance.
Blake Redding, a VistaLaw co-founder, was a principal in our Paris office from 2007 until 2009, when he joined Dolphin Energy Limited of Abu Dhabi as its General Counsel. He is responsible for all aspects of Dolphin's legal support and compliance.
Robert Walton,a VistaLaw co-founder, was a principal in our Washington, D.C. office from 2007 until 2010. He is currently Associate General Counsel at Deltek, Inc., a software company in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
Michael Whitener,a VistaLaw co-founder, was a principal in our Washington, D.C. office from 2007 until 2011. He is currently Senior Counsel with Clearspire, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm.
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