Ann J. LaFrance

European Partner, London and Brussels
Squire Sanders

Ann J. LaFrance is coordinator of the firm’s European and Middle East communications law and data privacy practice. Drawing from more than 20 years of industry experience in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and the Americas, Ms. LaFrance advises clients on regulation and competition law, advocacy and dispute resolution, merger control, and general commercial and corporate law. She is very knowledgeable on the new and evolving EU regulatory framework for electronic communications, particularly in the areas of interconnection and access (including Next Generation Access (NGA)), market reviews and dominance assessments, the imposition and removal of ex ante remedies, margin squeeze tests and rules relating to the bundling of services, spectrum allocation and assignment, e-commerce matters including data protection and data retention, international internet policy and a range of licensing issues. She also has experience negotiating a wide variety of complex cross-border commercial arrangements between and among operators, service providers and customers. Ms. LaFrance has particular experience with the drafting of legislative and regulatory frameworks to facilitate sector restructuring, liberalization and privatization in emerging markets.

From 1996 to 2003, Ms. LaFrance served as chief international counsel of MCI Communications Corp. (now Verizon), based in Brussels and London. In that capacity, she played an integral role in formulating company policy on regulatory and competition matters and advocating the company’s position before the European Commission, national regulatory and competition authorities across Europe and other key regulatory bodies around the world.

Prior to 1996, Ms. LaFrance was a partner with Squire Sanders based in the United States, where she had an active practice before the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other US agencies with jurisdiction over the telecommunications and postal sectors. She provided transactional advice and regulatory counsel to US- and non US-based clients in both the public and private sectors on a broad range of communications and postal matters. She also served as an adviser to governments and regulatory authorities in connection with privatization and liberalization initiatives in Central and Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

Ms. LaFrance serves as a member of the board of directors of the International Institute of Communications. She is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and the American, International, Federal Communications and District of Columbia Bar Associations, and Women in Telecommunications and Technology (UK).

Ms. LaFrance has been recognized as a foremost legal practitioner in regulatory communications in the 2005-2009 editions of The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers. She is also endorsed as an EU telecommunications lawyer in Practical Law Company’sWhich Lawyer? Yearbook 2009.