DLA Piper has advised DOCOMO Deutschland GmbH (DDL), a subsidiary of the Japanese mobile service provider NTT DOCOMO, Inc., on the acquisition of the Austrian trading solution provider fine trade gmbh. The transaction comprises the acquisition of all shares in fine trade gmbh from its current shareholders.

Under the brand name “loviit”, fine trade gmbh provides an eCommerce platform as an intermediary service between online merchants and customers and in particular offers multiple payment solutions to customers. The loviit system provides the participating merchants with the benefit of very short payment terms and assumes the end-customer risk.

The completion of the transaction is subject to merger control clearance.

Hiroyuki Sato, CEO of DDL, says: “fine trade operates an innovative and unique business model that represents an outstanding complement for our finance and payment services platform. This transaction is of strategic importance for us so it was very reassuring to have a law firm at our side that was able to seamlessly handle and resolve all cross-border aspects throughout the entire process of this transaction from a single source.”

Dr Cornelius Frie, who led the DLA team as Counsel, says: “After we had already been given the opportunity to advise net mobile AG - in which DDL holds a majority stake - with its acquisition of Bankverein Werther Aktiengesellschaft, we are delighted that we were able to support DOCOMO Deutschland GmbH for the very first time with its growth strategy in Europe.“

The team of DLA Piper was led by partner Dr Andreas Meyer-Landrut and counsel Dr Cornelius Frie (both Corporate, Cologne) and included partners Dr Jan Dreyer (Antitrust law, Cologne), Dr Christian Temmel (Corporate, Vienna), Stephan Nitzl (Employment, Vienna) as well as associates Dr Jan Stoppel (Corporate, Cologne), Dr Ulrich Bartl (Antitrust law, Cologne), Dr Florian Schumacher (Antitrust law, Vienna) and Oliver Werner (Corporate, Vienna).