Mr Stéphanie NOËL

Stéphanie Noël  is a practising member of the Paris Bar and is registered on the EU/EFTA List of Lawyers in Geneva. She advises companies, trade associations, governments and other public- and private-sector actors on complex international trade, regulatory and policy matters.

Before founding S. Noël Law Office in 2014, Stéphanie worked in the international trade teams of leading international law firms in Brussels and Geneva. With two decades of experience, she has advised clients across a broad range of sectors and jurisdictions, including governments from both developed and developing countries.

Her practice covers WTO law, EU trade and industrial policy, trade defence, market access and regulatory barriers, preferential trade agreements, and digital trade and services. She assists clients in assessing legal and commercial risks, developing policy options and advocacy strategies, engaging with governments, regulators and international institutions, and defending their interests in investigations, negotiations and disputes.

A significant part of Stéphanie’s work lies at the intersection of trade, climate and industrial policy. She advises on the legal and strategic implications of decarbonisation measures, the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, the EU Emissions Trading System, subsidies and public support, sustainability requirements, industrial competitiveness, economic security and supply-chain resilience. She helps clients respond to regulatory change and develop policy approaches that are legally robust, economically credible and workable in practice.

Stéphanie also helps clients make strategic use of the WTO’s institutional framework. She assists companies and industry organisations in translating commercial, regulatory and sector-specific concerns into legally grounded positions that can be raised by governments in WTO committees and other relevant forums. She advises on the most effective combination of institutional engagement, advocacy, negotiation and, where appropriate, litigation, including at an early stage before a trade concern develops into a formal dispute.

Her experience includes WTO dispute settlement matters, EU trade litigation and trade defence proceedings. She has worked on WTO matters concerning technical barriers to trade, market access, digital trade and EU regulatory measures, as well as on litigation before the Court of Justice of the European Union. She has also represented or advised exporters, domestic industries and governments in anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and safeguard proceedings across several jurisdictions.

Her approach is strategic, multidisciplinary and solutions-oriented. She combines rigorous legal analysis with economic, regulatory, institutional, policy and sector-specific perspectives to identify the issues that genuinely affect the client’s objectives and develop positions that can be used effectively in business decision-making, policy discussions, advocacy, negotiations, investigations and disputes.