Urs Maurer-Lambrou studied law at the University of Bern and was admitted to the Bernese bar in 1989. From 1989 to 1991 he worked in the data protection division of the Swiss Federal Justice Department. He served as the federal privacy officer for the 1991 national census and worked with parliament on the Swiss Data Protection Act, both during the debates and through its implementation. He also represented Switzerland on the Council of Europe's study group for freedom of information and data protection.
He earned his LL.M. at Duke University School of Law in 1992 and was admitted to the New York State Bar the following year. He has been a member of the Zurich/Zug bar since 1992. From 1992 to 1997 he practiced at Bär & Karrer in Zurich, handling international corporate and contract law, computer and data protection law, mergers and acquisitions, and banking. He has been senior partner at Maurer Law Offices in Baar/Zug since 2000.
For more than twenty years he has sat on and chaired corporate boards in Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the EU. He chaired two SIX-listed companies, Valartis Group AG and ENR Russia SA, and three banks: Valartis Bank AG, Valartis Bank (Liechtenstein) AG, and Valartis Bank (Austria) AG in Vienna. He has also held board seats at media, real estate, and technology companies.
Since 2004 he has been co-editor and co-author of the Basle Commentary on the Swiss Data Protection and Freedom of Information Act. The third edition, published in 2014, runs to 1,180 pages and brings together more than 35 contributors. From 2019 to 2022 he served as delegate for international affairs at the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner, representing Switzerland at the OECD and the European Data Protection Board and on the Schrems II, Libra, and Brexit files. In 2018 and 2019 he served as an official arbitrator of the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield, appointed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Swiss government. He was a board member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Informationsfreiheit in Berlin from 2008 to 2019 and gave guest lectures on data protection at the University of St. Gallen's Executive School and the University of Freiburg.
He writes on banking regulation and supervision, data protection and freedom of information, and cross-border financial regulation, Swiss administrative and procurement oversight, neutrality, corporate governance.
Urs Maurer-Lambrou lives in Baar, in the canton of Zug. He speaks German, English, and French.
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Articles by Urs Maurer-Lambrou