Private client practice

As the cornerstone of a married couple's economic relationship, the matrimonial property regime determines each spouse's ownership of and power over property, delimits their liability to creditors, and ensures the best asset protection for the surviving spouse. Our lawyers can advise you on choosing the most appropriate matrimonial property regime for your marriage, adapting it to any subsequent changes in your situation and applying it as effectively as possible to your various property transactions (purchases, sales, gifts, creation of companies), so as to avoid any mistakes that could prove prejudicial in the event of a later divorce or death.

Longer life expectancies and intergenerational wealth inequalities often lead parents, or grandparents, to gift assets to their descendants during their lifetime. Such inter vivos transfers must be well thought-out and properly executed to ensure that the donor's objectives are not subsequently thwarted upon settlement of the estate. To guarantee a gradual and controlled wealth transmission under the best legal and tax conditions, our lawyers will assist you in analyzing your personal situation, choosing the right instruments, planning and implementing the asset transfers, then monitoring and protecting them over time.

Spouses of different nationalities, expatriation, investments abroad: the growing internationalization of families and their wealth is a source of risks and opportunities. Our private client lawyers work closely with our foreign correspondents to identify your private international law issues and offer you the right solutions to secure and optimize your situation. Our teams are also especially recognized for their expertise in wealth transmission transactions (gifts, shared gifts, marriage contracts) and asset structuring (creation of family holding companies, life insurance, etc.) in an international context.

Passing down a family business is a very important event in the life of an owner, and one of the most challenging. It brings into play the relationships between the various family members, and the long-term future of the business in which the owner has often invested great effort. We provide owners, particularly of family businesses, with teams experienced in business transfers, capable of assisting them in their choice of legal and tax schemes as well as in all the governance issues affecting the organization. Our goal? To ensure the legal and tax security of the overall plan, anticipate relations between heirs, shareholders and managers, and promote the company's development. Our firm is a forerunner in this field, with unrivalled expertise.

Life insurance policies have become a key element in the creation of wealth and a very important vehicle for its transmission, their particularity being that they fall outside the scope of the estate for legal and tax purposes. To seize the associated opportunities and avoid the pitfalls, Fidal has developed an audit methodology for safely and independently optimizing your contracts, in terms of both their wealth management aspects (subscription, designation of beneficiaries and legal functioning) and their tax aspects.

Knowing how to guard against life’s uncertainties is especially important for business owners, to ensure their company's long-term survival. This is particularly true for the risk of incapacity. Planning for future incapacity, ensuring the continuity of wealth and/or business management, implementing a strategy to protect a vulnerable child, requires not only a knowledge of the relevant technical tools, but above all an understanding "beyond the law" of the needs of the business owner and of his or her family. We share this vision and stand at your side to help you think through and implement the strategy best suited to your goals.

Fidal also offers a unique "Fiduciary advice - Fiduciary activity" value chain, providing you with strategic guidance and alternative scenarios in terms of asset organization and management.