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Stéphanie Martinier

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Stéphanie Martinier is an M&A partner and member of the firm's Private Capital industry group.

Stéphanie is located in the Paris office and licensed to practice law in both France and New York.

Stéphanie advises French and international clients regarding cross-border transactions and commercial matters. She represents private equity funds and corporate entities in business acquisitions, sales and joint ventures, as well as in the negotiation of complex commercial contracts and in corporate restructurings.

Stéphanie focuses in particular in the industrial sector, and on technology and financial companies.

Stéphanie also represents clients in litigation matters relating to M&A transactions and shareholders’ disputes, and regularly counsels clients regarding compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and French data privacy regulations.

In addition, Stéphanie manages the pro bono work of the Paris office and, as part of this commitment, provides legal training on business creation to young entrepreneurs through the not-for-profit Yes Akademia.

Having attended law school in both France and the United States, Stéphanie holds a master of law from University Lyon III as well as a LL.M. degree from the University of Minnesota. She has been with Proskauer for the duration of her legal career.

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Uncertainty regarding the compatibility of blockchain technology and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has often been highlighted as a potential obstacle to the development and widespread implementation of blockchain systems involving personal data.

To address tensions between blockchain technology and the GDPR, Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), the French data protection regulator, published an initial report analyzing certain fundamental questions regarding the interaction between blockchain technology and the GDPR’s requirements (the “Report”). The Report was the first guidance issued by a European data protection regulator on this topic.

CNIL’s Approach to Identifying Blockchain Data Controllers and Data Processors

The Report highlights the challenges of identifying data controllers and data processors in the blockchain context – an important distinction that determines which set of regulatory obligations applies.

In discussing the likely classification of the various types of persons and entities involved in a blockchain, the CNIL primarily distinguished between (i) participants (i.e., those who transact on the blockchain) that have the ability to determine what data will be entered into a blockchain or have permission to write on it or cause data to be written to it, and (ii) miners or other validators (i.e., those who do not transact and instead validate transactions submitted by participants). The CNIL also provided an analysis as to how to classify smart contract developers and natural persons who enter personal data in a blockchain, distinguishing, with respect to the latter, between those engaging in personal or household activities and those engaging in professional or commercial activities.