We have advised real.digital on the establishment of International Marketplace Network (IMN), the first alliance of European e-commerce platforms. The joint venture is headquartered in The Netherlands and held by real.de (Germany), Cdiscount (France), eMAG (Rumania) and ePrice (Italy). Starting with these four founding members, it creates a fully integrated European e-commerce platform. Further marketplaces and distributors are welcome to join. The aim is to foster the cross-border trade of goods between distributors to the benefit of consumers.
An international and interdisciplinary Simmons & Simmons team supported real.digital throughout all phases of the negotiation, document drafting, and formation of the joint venture company. Lead partner Dr Christian Bornhorst (Corporate/M&A, Düsseldorf) states: “IMN is an international four party joint venture, it disposes of its own technology platform and was designed for growth and scale. This inevitably results in a certain complexity. We happily accepted the challenge along with our client to set up the legal framework for the IMN platform. Locally operating marketplaces are now able to connect with international distributors.“
Claudia Bolten, Managing Director of Non-Food at real.digital emphasises: “While working with Christian Bornhorst and his team, we especially appreciated their ability to point us towards alternative legal solutions whenever necessary. Their technical expertise and experience helped us to significantly ease the negotiations with our joint venture partners and to thereby accelerate the process”.
About real.digital
Via www.real.de, real GmbH operates one of the largest multi-channel portals in Germany. Up to 19 million page visitors have access to 12 million products from over 5,000 different categories. More than 5,000 distributors are listed at www.real.de.
Advisors to real.digital
Simmons & Simmons Düsseldorf
Dr Christian Bornhorst, Partner, Lead Partner (Corporate/M&A)
Dr Anja Schlichting, Associate (Corporate/M&A)
Andrea Ritter, Supervising Associate (IP)
Dr Steffen Nguyen-Quang, Counsel (Employment)
Simmons & Simmons Amsterdam
Gijs ter Braak, Partner (Corporate/M&A, Public Notary)
Pieter de Visser, Counsel (Corporate/M&A)
Intragroup
Dr Simon Boll, Head of Legal M&A, METRO AG
