Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences People

Kaupo Lepasepp is a partner and regional head of the Competition & Regulatory Team, which includes the Competition, Energy & Utilities and Infrastructure & Regulatory Practices. He is also head of the Commercial Contracts Team in Estonia, which includes the Distribution & Trade, Intellectual Property, Information Technology & Data Protection, Pharmaceuticals & Life Sciences and Telecommunications Practices. Kaupo has been practising law since 2002.

Kaupo focuses in the intellectual property field on technology and intellectual property transfers, protection of know-how and confidential information, especially contracts, and unfair competition matters. In the information technology (IT) and telecommunications field, he focuses on IT and data protection matters, especially contracts.

Kaupo has advised clients on avoiding prohibited agreements, and has represented clients in competition law related negotiations and in competition law based procedures carried out both by the European Commission and the Estonian Competition Authority. He has substantial experience with competition law court disputes. In addition, he focuses on dominant position issues arising in infrastructural and regulatory areas, especially in the natural gas, district heating (heat and electricity co-production) and railway sectors. In a situation of growing tensions in the energy sector, Kaupo is entrusted by a leading energy and gas company in the Nordic, Russia and Baltic Rim area, with daily and strategic matters. In the postal sector, Kaupo has advised a Nordic logistics group on several matters arising from a dominant position.

Kaupo is a recommended practitioner in many publications, including:

• The Legal 500 in EU and competition; IP, IT and telecoms, and maritime and transport practices (which comments that he leaves clients "very satisfied with the work");
• Chambers Europe in competition/antitrust commenting that he is "considered an expert in this field"; and
• Best Lawyers for railroad practice in Estonia.

Kaupo was recently invited by the Estonian Competition Authority to a working group on the new national Block Exemption Regulation. Since 2010 he is a member of the Ethics and Methodology Committee of the Estonian Bar Association. Recently Kaupo has contributed to several international legal studies (Privacy International's multijurisdictional study "European Privacy and Human Rights 2010" funded by the European Commission, telecoms and EC study on e-Health). Kaupo has served as a member of the evaluation and examination committee of court bailiffs appointed by the Estonian Minister of Justice.

University of Tartu, Estonia (BA in Law / officially equivalent to MA)

Estonian Bar Association
Member of the Ethics and Methodology Committee, Estonian Bar Association
International Bar Association