The team Towery
Portrait Martin Lemery

Martin Lémery

Partner – Intellectual property – Information Technology
Download vCard

Martin has been a lawyer at the Paris Bar since 2004, after two years working as a legal expert.

He works mainly with customers in the creative sector, the entertainment industry, communication and the media and in particular in the following domains:

  • Information and communication Technologies: IT, electronic commerce, the liability of technical intermediaries, data privacy, databases
  • Music (artists, phonographic producers, publishers and producers of stage shows)
  • Combating infringement, piracy and the cyber delinquency
  • Fashion
  • Video games
  • Literary publishing and print media
  • Advertising
  • Film and Audiovisual
  • Brand law

With his partners at Towery, he proposes solutions specific to the problem issues encountered in these sectors, in both business law, tax law, criminal law as well as intellectual property rights, in an advisory capacity and in litigation cases.

Martin obtained a post-graduate diploma (DESS) in Law and Communication techniques from the University of Poitiers in 2001, and his thesis was supervised by Professor Lucas. The title was “The restructuring of the music industry: new access to the phonogram” and anticipated the changes that are today current in the sector.

Since 2011, Martin is teaching on the Master 2 course in New information and communication techniques law at the University of Versailles-Saint Quentin. He teaches the application of anti-infringement laws.

Martin devotes a large part of his time to alternative dispute settlement methods, and to mediation in particular. After following training in inter-company mediation at the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he gained a diploma from the International School of Alternative Dispute Settlement Methods from the Paris Bar. Martin is also trained in collaborative law.

Portrait Olivier Wagnon

Olivier Wagnon

Partner – Corporate law
Download vCard

Olivier has been a lawyer at the Paris Bar since 2006, after two years working as a legal expert in a law firm.

Unlike most lawyers who decide to specialise in a single field right from the beginning of their careers, Olivier Wagnon chose while still a student (Master’s in Business Law – Master’s in Company and Market Finance) to cover all the legal fields entering into the sphere of corporate law in order to be able to offer the various players in the business world (entrepreneurs, companies, leaders and shareholders), global expertise in all of the legal and financial problem issues encountered by such players.

Olivier Wagnon’s career and educational choices were dictated by this bold stance with regard to (i) the conventional career path in the profession and (ii) the time required to achieve such a complete professional maturity.

After more than ten years spent working for major lawyers, in reputed French and international law firms, Olivier Wagnon acquired solid experience in advisory services and in litigation and now offers his customers expertise in the management of complex situations and combats that are sometimes heavy to implement to secure the interests of the customers, finalise their operations, introduce innovative strategies or settle their litigation, and more typically, advise leaders/shareholders at each stage of the life of the company, from inception to termination, whether closed voluntarily or by the courts.

As part of the management of complex litigation cases, Olivier Wagnon accords particular importance to cultivating proximity with each of his customers, for this is the guarantee of complete command of the case files and in fine, of success.

Portrait Thomas Thiebaut

Thomas Thiebaut

Partner – Former tax inspector
Download vCard

Thomas worked first of all as a consultant, a few years after graduating with a Master’s degree in E-business from Skema Business School in 2001.

After initial experience in the world of start-ups and consulting in information systems, a few meetings persuaded him to join the tax authorities and become a tax inspector and carry out tax inspections.

Tax inspections can in fact be fascinating when we realise that they provide an overview of the entirety of the operations of a company, to be discovered from the wings, as it were, while working in a highly specialised legal capacity that is totally embedded in the economic life of the company. In addition, these inspections are an opportunity to have discussions with the company leaders, who are often highly interesting people.

After studying at the Ecole Nationale des Impôts, Thomas therefore spent close on 10 years with the tax authorities before taking up the profession of lawyer. As a tax inspector, he examined principally SMEs and mid-cap companies from all industry sectors as well as insurance companies, across the spectrum of tax issues encountered by such companies, whether involving the rules applicable to a tax or duty, to those applicable to restructuring or transfer pricing, via the entrepreneurial tax systems of their leaders and shareholders.

Thomas then decided to practice law, once again following an opportune meeting, always for the pleasure of dealing with subjects that have an impact on the life of the company and to meet the leaders but also to defend and advise entrepreneurs, who are unfamiliar with the mysteries of fiscal legislation.

Thomas therefore provides advisory services to the customers of TOWERY in terms of tax law, on all aspects affecting the life of the company and the tax scheme of the leader, whether on national or international issues. His special expertise also includes a good knowledge of corporate accounting rules and the taxation of financial futures. He works in all the sectors of the conventional economy but also in the insurance sector.

Thomas is a member of the Institut des Avocats Conseils Fiscaux, of the Cercle des Anciens de Bercy, and the Paris Foch Rotary Club, of which he is a former President.

Portrait Samuel Scherman

Samuel Scherman

Partner – Restructuring & Insolvency – Litigation
Download vCard

Following general legal training with a focus on litigation, Samuel turned to two main and often complementary activities: restructuring and insolvency, and general business litigation.

He began his career with one of the top firms specialised in companies in insolvency and litigation, both in-house and within various international law firms based in Paris (Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson et Willkie Farr & Gallagher). Samuel then joined Hogan Lovells as counsel before becoming a partner in a boutique firm specialised in supporting companies in difficulty and in litigation. He then joined TOWERY.

His almost 15 years’ experience in these varying structure types have afforded him extensive company knowledge, equipping him with the skills to advise large groups financed by LBO, as well as SMEs and mid-cap companies.

Samuel acts on behalf of potential buyers of companies in difficulty (investment funds, private investors, companies), whether as part of a disposal plan or a pre-insolvency procedure. He also advises companies in difficulty when it comes to pre-insolvency proceedings (ad hoc mandates and conciliation) and receivership (safeguard, judicial recovery and judicial liquidation). He believes that the key to success in this field lies in a full understanding of the client and restructuring professionals, and identifying and resolve problems early.

His solid experience in complex litigation also means he can provide advisory services to companies and/or their shareholders with regard to the varying range of settlements they may encounter.

The fact that his areas of expertise complement those of the other TOWERY partners means he can offer personalised support that is tailored to all aspects of corporate life.

Samuel is a member of the Association pour le Retournement des Entreprises (Association for Company Turnarounds) and Insol Europe. Furthermore, he has taught modules on insolvency at the École de Formation du Barreau de Paris (Paris Bar Training School) and has held training sessions on LBO restructuring difficulties.

Xavier Chiloux

Xavier Chiloux

Xavier has been a lawyer at the Paris Bar for 30 years (since 1988).
Download vCard

Since the beginning, his area of expertise has been litigation in social law, more specifically on issues related to lay-offs, as well as commercial litigation.
Xavier assists corporate executives who have just been dismissed, or who are about to be dismissed, and also SMEs who are seeking strategic advice.
Thus, with these SMEs, it is a real question of working steadily every day to anticipate the growing problems related to social legislation.
These same SMEs are often confronted with debt collections for which Xavier intervenes before the various commercial courts of the Paris region.
Xavier studied law at Paris II Assas University where he earned a master’s degree with a focus on legal careers.
After serving in the military as an infantry officer, he began his career specialising in social law intervening at most of the industrial tribunals from all over the country.
Xavier and a former auditor of the Institute for Advanced Studies in National Defence (Ihedn), national session number 52.
In tandem, Xavier, who is passionate about almost all sports and practices several of them, was elected president of the French Squash Federation from 1991 to 1996.
He was French champion of university squash, and has been playing the sport for more than 40 years.
Xavier has always been invested in his professional environment, creating and chairing in particular “the association for the renovation of labour court procedures”.
He was elected member of the Council of the Paris Bar Association for the years 2012, 2013 and 2014, then member of the National Council of Bar Associations (CNB) for the years 2015, 2016, and 2017.
Xavier is also vice-president of the National Bar Association of France (CNBF), an organisation to which he has been elected since 2011.
In this capacity, he is particularly involved in all current issues related to pension reform.
Xavier has created, and chairs the association of lawyers “squash au palais” (association of litigation lawyers who play squash) and “Chamonix Zermatt 2014” which guides a number of fellow members up to the peaks of the world’s glaciers every year.
After reaching Kilimanjaro in 2017, his sights are now set on Nepal.
As a sort of merging of his athletic passions and his legal profession, Xavier declared his candidacy to be elected president of the bar association for 2022, thus hoping to take office on 1 January 2024, and become the “olympic president of the bar association.