Zimeray & Finelle combines expertise in complex legal challenges with international diplomacy, offering clients unique, tailor-made legal services.
François Zimeray and Jessica Finelle initially worked together 15 years ago on a peace-building initiative in the Middle East. Since then, their international work as lawyer, diplomat, or MEP has over-lapped in a range of contexts – from post-genocide Cambodia to central Africa. In 2018, François Zimeray and Jessica Finelle joined forces to create a unique law firm, specialising in international human rights (including corporate compliance), transnational crime, and conflict resolution.
Combining François Zimeray’s experience as a commercial lawyer, politician and diplomat (including as France’s Ambassador for Human Rights), with Jessica Finelle’s expertise in French and international criminal law, Zimeray & Finelle’s clients include individuals, organisations, corporations, and governments.
Headquartered in Paris, Zimeray & Finelle have a presence in London (where Zimeray is an associate tenant at Doughty Street Chambers) as well as Geneva.
Jessica Finelle discussed parental abduction in Japan on the Find My Parent podcast.
After several months of a procedure under pressure, Jessica Finelle and François Zimeray, together with Etienne Arnaud, obtained from the Chambéry Court of Appeal a decision dated 30 March 2023 refusing their client’s extradition to Ukraine.
“It is clear that the junta’s goal is for her to die in prison,” French lawyers François Zimeray and Jessica Finelle who represent Suu Kyi, said in a statement.
Zimeray & Finelle’s insight on the guilty plea concluded between Lafarge and the US DOJ on 18 October 2022, and its implications on the French criminal proceedings : “The Lafarge case is prototypical of a profound evolution of business law, highlighted by the criminal liability of companies for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity. Hence, it is being followed with attention by all those who, from outside the case, see in it the foreshadowing of a new risk and the development of a new field of law, “business and human rights”. It is in this spirit that we share the concerns raised by the agreement recently concluded by the company with American judicial authorities, as part of a guilty plea partly based on similar facts to the current French procedure”.
Zimeray & Finelle Avocats has petitioned the UN and denounced Aung San Suu Kyi’s «judicial kidnapping », perpetrated by the Burmese military junta.
“The petition seeks for the UN to call on the US government to release Maxwell pending trial and to urge an independent investigation into her “arbitrary detention.” (…)
In addition to the jail conditions, Zimeray and Finelle argued that Maxwell will never be given a fair trial because she has been convicted in the court of public opinion — and that prosecutors have not tried to show she is presumed innocent.”
ZIMERAY & FINELLE AVOCATS
75008 Paris
Tél. : +33 (0) 1 82 28 14 55
Fax. : +33 (0) 1 82 28 14 56
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