Ex-finance minister joins Couderts Paris

Coudert Brothers' Paris office has recruited a senior French Ministry of Finance official to strengthen its antitrust team.

French advocate Dom-inique Brault joins the firm as a consultant and will work closely with Couderts partner Jean-Patrice de la Laurencie in overseeing the nine-lawyer antitrust department. He will advise clients on all aspects of competition law.

He will also work closely with Couderts' antitrust team in Brussels. Brault, who is 64, has worked in competition law since 1963 and has been a contraleur d'etat in the finance ministry since 1985. He took the unusual step of moving from public service to private practice because he was coming up for retirement.

"I thought it was advisable to keep an activity for the coming years. I am particularly interested in antitrust problems, and I seized the opportunity to work with Coudert Freres," he says.

In 1977 Brault set up the French antitrust commission and became its first general reporter - a post he held for eight years. He has also been associate professor at the Universite Rene Descartes in Paris.