Kiril Bougartchev

After he graduated from St Jean de Passy in Paris, Kiril Bougartchev studied at Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas.

He has post-graduate diplomas in Business Law (Magistère) and in Tax Law (DESS).

He first worked as an intern at l’Oreal in Paris and carried out several internships at renowned US law firms (Coudert Brothers, etc.) and securities brokers (Morgan, Olmstead, Kennedy & Gardner), before he started his career in 1988 as an auditor at Arthur Andersen.

A year later, after his final internship at Jean Veil et Associés, he joined Gide Loyrette Nouel where he became partner in 1999 in the Litigation and White Collar Crime department.

He joined Linklaters in June 2007 where he was made co-head of the Dispute Resolution practice in Paris and facilitator of the Linklaters Global White Collar Crime Group.

Since his admission to the Paris bar, Kiril has been involved in numerous civil, commercial, criminal and regulatory (particularly before the Autorité des Marchés Financiers and the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution) disputes.

His areas of expertise include notably the energy, insurance, defence and aerospace sectors as well as the banking industry.

Kiril has been involved in many notorious white collar crime cases, including sensitive political and financial matters. He is notably advising a Swiss bank and its chief executive prosecuted in France on grounds of aggravated laundering of the proceeds of tax fraud committed by a former Minister. He is also assisting an armaments company in connection with a criminal investigation opened following an attack in Asia in the early 2000s. In January 2016, Kiril and his team implemented in a money-laundering matter the first plea bargaining ever in the French Financial Public Prosecutor’s history. He also represented major firms and their management in large-scale matters relating to industrial and environmental accidents (explosion at a refinery, accident during a Universal Exhibition, various matters on pollution and abandoned waste…).

Kiril was formerly a Secrétaire de la Conférence des Avocats of the Paris Bar and successively an outside lecturer and examiner in white collar crime at Paris II University (Magistère de Juriste d’Affaires DJCE) and a lecturer in international criminal procedure at Montpellier University (Master programme in Criminal Law) between 2004 and 2007.

Since 2011, Kiril Bougartchev is an external contributor and examiner at EDHEC Business School (MSC Legal and Tax Management).

He has been a member of the Working Committee on decriminalisation of business criminal law and companies’ competitiveness of “Paris Europlace”. In this regard, he has been working on the reform of Article 145 of the Code of Civil Procedure (French discovery) and on the French guilty plea mainstreaming.

His recent publications include articles in relation to the misuse of corporate assets, corruption, auditors’ criminal liability, business secrecy. He is also the co-author of the French chapter of the Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption Review (Law Business Research, 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015) and the French chapter of a comparative law book about the offence of corruption which will be published by Oxford University in 2017. Kiril is viewed as “an expert in white collar crime, very involved in his matters” (Chambers) and “trustworthy”, “very customer-oriented and creative” with “a very high level of strategic vision” that makes him “an ally of choice in tough matters” (Legal 500), a “formidable advocate” commended for its “world-class White Collar Crime practice” (Who’s Who Legal).

Since 2007, Kiril is ranked as “Essential” in several categories such as White Collar Crime, Commercial and Financial Litigation and Regulatory Litigation by Décideurs where he is also listed amongst the “great strategists”.

In 2009 and 2016, Kiril and his team were named “White Collar Crime Team of the Year – France” by Décideurs at the Trophées du Droit. In 2013, Kiril was named “Lawyer of the Year – France” in Criminal defence by Best Lawyers.

Kiril co-founded the Bougartchev Moyne Associés law firm in January 2017.