Andreas Schwab, a German member of the European Parliament, has been making headlines in the last week after drafting a resolution that calls for the breakup of Google.
But Mr. Schwab is not just a legislator, he is also “of counsel” at the German law firm CMS Hasche Sigle, which has represented some of the German publishing interests that have been most eager to declaw Google. He earns roughly $15,000 to $75,000 annually from the firm, according to a disclosure filing. The firm’s website lists his expertise as competition policy.
Potential conflicts like working at a law firm are barred by the United States Congress, though permitted in some American state legislatures. European law has no prohibition on holding a second job at a law firm, though it does require disclosure of the relationship.
In an email, Mr. Schwab said he had not discussed his resolution with the law firm and called it “a purely political issue.”
“All transparency rules are fully respected,” he said, adding that many of his colleagues had to weigh in on the resolution. “You can be sure that the text of this resolution” is “based on a neutral assessment of the facts.”
CMS Hasche Sigle, part of the larger international firm CMS, has represented the German Magazine Publishers association in the past. The association is among the complainants against Google in a sprawling European antitrust case. But CMS Hasche Sigle, which also does lobbying work on legal issues, said it had no role in the Google case.
Ole Jani, one of the firm’s partners, also provided informal advice to the German justice minister while the German government was developing a law aimed at bolstering the copyrights of German publishers, who have sought to be paid for Google’s excerpting of their content. The copyright issue has been at the center of the increasingly contentious relationship between Google and German publishers.
Mr. Jani said he had met Mr. Schwab only once or twice and had not discussed the resolution with him, or the copyright legislation. He declined to speak about the firm’s clients, though he said, “We do a lot of work for those who are on the content side.”
Regarding Mr. Schwab’s role, he said, “I don’t see any conflict of interest in principle” because it had been disclosed, and there was no prohibition in Europe on being a member of parliament and working at a law firm. “Otherwise we wouldn’t have taken him in.”
Congressional guidelines in the United States say that the “restriction on law practice arises from the lawyer’s duty of undivided loyalty to his or her clients, which makes the practice of law particularly susceptible to conflicts with the wide-ranging responsibilities of Members.”
But such dual roles are hardly unknown in state legislatures. New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a Democrat, holds the same title as Mr. Schwab, ‘of counsel,’ at a major tort firm, Weitz & Luxenberg, a relationship that has long drawn scrutiny.
Google has the majority of the search market in Europe. The resolution proposes to pry apart search engines from other businesses. It is seen as yet another move against Google by increasingly restive European lawmakers and regulators, and has drawn a sharp retort from American lawmakers.
Mr. Schwab is a member of German chancellor Angel Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union, which is part of the center-right European People’s Party, the largest bloc in the European Parliament.
The nonbinding resolution, seen as having a strong chance of approval, comes up for a vote on Thursday.