Ann J. LaFrance is coordinator of the firm’s European and Middle East communications law and data privacy practice. Drawing from more than 20 years of industry experience in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and the Americas, Ms. LaFrance advises clients on regulation and competition law, advocacy and dispute resolution, merger control, and general commercial and corporate law. She is very knowledgeable on the new and evolving EU regulatory framework for electronic communications, particularly in the areas of interconnection and access (including Next Generation Access (NGA)), market reviews and dominance assessments, the imposition and removal of ex ante remedies, margin squeeze tests and rules relating to the bundling of services, spectrum allocation and assignment, e-commerce matters including data protection and data retention, international internet policy and a range of licensing issues. She also has experience negotiating a wide variety of complex cross-border commercial arrangements between and among operators, service providers and customers. Ms. LaFrance has particular experience with the drafting of legislative and regulatory frameworks to facilitate sector restructuring, liberalization and privatization in emerging markets.

From 1996 to 2003, Ms. LaFrance served as chief international counsel of MCI Communications Corp. (now Verizon), based in Brussels and London. In that capacity, she played an integral role in formulating company policy on regulatory and competition matters and advocating the company’s position before the European Commission, national regulatory and competition authorities across Europe and other key regulatory bodies around the world.

Prior to 1996, Ms. LaFrance was a partner with Squire Sanders based in the United States, where she had an active practice before the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other US agencies with jurisdiction over the telecommunications and postal sectors. She provided transactional advice and regulatory counsel to US- and non US-based clients in both the public and private sectors on a broad range of communications and postal matters. She also served as an adviser to governments and regulatory authorities in connection with privatization and liberalization initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

Ms. LaFrance serves as a member of the board of directors of the International Institute of Communications. She is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the American, International, Federal Communications and District of Columbia Bar Associations, and Women in Telecommunications and Technology (UK).

Ms. LaFrance has been recognized as a foremost legal practitioner in regulatory communications in the 2005-2007 editions of The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers. She is also recommended as an EU telecommunications lawyer in Practical Law Company’s Which Lawyer? Yearbook 2006.

Representative Experience

• Leading a legal and regulatory team selected to advise ictQATAR, the telecoms regulatory authority of the State of Qatar, in connection with the award of a second mobile and a second integrated fixed network license (including WiMax spectrum), including the development of regulatory policies and procedures to govern the introduction of competition into the Qatari market; drafting of consultation papers and responses relating to license procedures and dominance designations; the development of master operating licenses and spectrum licenses and detailed annexes; the design of tender processes (auction and beauty contest) for fixed and mobile licenses; providing advice to ictQATAR on the creation of corporate governance structures, management agreements and documentation related to the licensing of two new entrants; and the conduct of parallel competitive bidding processes for the selection of foreign strategic investors in the new licensees.
• Providing regulatory advice to the successful applicant (Saudi Telecom) in a tender process for a twenty-six percent stake in a new mobile GSM and 3G operator in the State of Kuwait.
• Acting as adviser to a bidding consortium on regulatory matters in connection with the issuance of, and proposed operation under, the second and third mobile licenses and a competitive data license in Saudi Arabia.
• Acting for a joint venture company created to provide GSM communications on board aircraft in the company’s successful campaign to obtain approval of the service from regional bodies and to secure regulatory authorizations for the use of spectrum and to operate airborne GSM services in more than 20 countries across Europe and the Middle East.
• Providing regulatory and competition law advice on a range of pricing, marketing and infrastructure sharing issues for a major Central European mobile operator (ongoing).
• Serving as legal and regulatory adviser to the government of Hungary in connection with the modernization of the country’s telecoms regulatory framework and the privatization of the incumbent operator.
• Serving as legal and regulatory adviser to the government of the Czech Republic and the Czech Telecommunications Office (regulatory authority) in connection with the liberalization of its telecommunications market and the privatization of SPT Telecom.
• Acting as an adviser to the government of the Czech Republic and the Czech Telecommunications Office in connection with the award of the first competitive mobile license. 
• Acting as an adviser on competition law and regulatory matters to a major CIS mobile operator seeking to acquire control of a mobile licensee in Ukraine, and examination of post-acquisition competition law issues and potential regulatory remedies with respect to pricing, bundling and other potential marketing initiatives. 
• Serving as a legal and regulatory adviser to OTE and its affiliate, ArmenTel, in connection with the renegotiation of key provisions of ArmenTel’s license and the shareholders agreement between OTE and the Republic of Armenia dating back to the privatization of ArmenTel, as part of a successful effort to settle outstanding arbitration claims lodged by the Republic, ArmenTel and OTE against one another.
• Advising the government of Zambia on legal and regulatory issues associated with the planned liberalization of international gateway services, including various transitional measures.
• Leading, as chief international counsel of MCI Communications Corp., MCI’s participation in national implementation of the “new” EU Telecommunications Regulatory Framework and market review procedures in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, and coordinating presentations to DG Information Society in preparation for the publication of pre-framework and post-framework implementation reports.
• Representing MCI Communications Corp. in negotiating the resolution of a range of affiliate relations issues with British Telecom in connection with the global BT-MCI Concert joint venture (including dissolution of same), with Citigroup in connection with the Avantel joint venture in Mexico, and with Vodacom in connection with MCI’s (UUNet’s) service provider affiliate in South Africa.
• Serving as an adviser to the governments of Ecuador and Bolivia in connection with the opening of each country’s respective telecommunications market and the proposed privatization of their telecommunications systems.