Noëlle LENOIR

Noëlle Lenoir holds law degrees from the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas and a degree in political science from the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

After having passed a competitive examination for the entry to the French Senate’s administration, Noëlle Lenoir was appointed in 1972 as legal advisor to the Judiciary Committee of the French Senate, where she specialized in criminal law and human rights law. In addition, she was in charge of the drafting of the report on the budget of the Ministry of Justice on behalf of the Judiciary Committee of the Senate.

From 1982 to 1984, Noëlle Lenoir was Chief Legal Officer of the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés or the “CNIL”). From 1984 to 1988, she served as Justice of the Conseil d’Etat (the French Administrative Supreme Court) and was appointed in 1987 as “Commissaire du gouvernement” (Prosecutor) of this Court.

From 1988 to 1990, she was appointed as Chief of Staff to the Minister of Justice. From 1990 to 1991, Noëlle Lenoir was in charge of law and bioethics for the French Prime Minister and in that capacity she drafted a report which served as the basis for the first French bioethics legislation.

Noëlle Lenoir is the first woman and the youngest person to be appointed as Justice of the French Constitutional Court (1992-2001, non-renewable term of nine years). During this period, she presided the EU Group of Ethics for Science and New Technology (1994-2001) in charge of advising the EU Commission on all legislative initiatives dealing with these issues. She also presided the International Committee on Bioethics of UNESCO (1991–1998) which drafted the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights endorsed by the United Nations in 1998.

From 2002 to 2004, Noëlle Lenoir served as Minister of European Affairs. In this capacity she was appointed as the first General Secretary of the Franco-German cooperation along with her German counterpart. During her tenure, she was notably involved in negotiations on Eastern European countries’ accession to the European Union (the “EU”) and in negotiations on the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe.

From 2012-2014, Noëlle Lenoir served as the Chief Ethics Officer of the French National Assembly. Noëlle Lenoir chaired several Ethics Committees, including the French Public Broadcast’s Ethics Committee and the National Parcoursup’s Ethics and Scientific Committee in charge of reviewing the French higher education admission platform.

From 2017 to 2020, she was appointed as a member of the Independent Compliance Review Panel (along with Theo Waigel, a former German Prosecutor, deputy and Federal Minister of Finance, and Lord Gold, a former British lawyer and House of Lords representative) to perform independent review of Airbus’ compliance program in the context of international investigations conducted by the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) of the United States (the “US”), the Serious Fraud Office (the “SFO”) of the United Kingdom (the “UK”) and the French Parquet National Financier (the “PNF”).

Noëlle Lenoir is a member of the American Law Institute as well as the French Academy of Technologies. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the French Association of Constitutionalists, the French Maritime Cluster and HEC Business School. She is the vice-president of the International Chamber of Commerce (French Section) and the Chair of the Legal Committee of Paris-Ile de France Capitale Economique in charge of making proposals to reinforce Paris’s attractiveness as a legal marketplace.

Noëlle Lenoir has been a board director of several companies (e.g., Generali France, Compagnie des Alpes and Valeo) and she is currently director of Sopra-Steria. Noëlle Lenoir is the founding Chair of the Cercle des Européens, a think tank and forum of debate on EU affairs. She presides the Committee “Droit et Débat Public” whose goal is to increase public understanding of topical legal matters. She is honorary President of the Society for the Friends of Honoré Daumier, a well-known French cartoonist who lived in the 19 th century. Noëlle Lenoir was elected twice as mayor of a little town near Paris. She also notably taught at University College London (2000), Columbia Law School (2001), Paris Institute of Political Studies, University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and HEC Business School. She is also honoris causa of University College London and Suffolk University (Boston).

Columnist on European matters for a variety of newspapers, she was editor for the BFM radio station, France-Culture radio, France 24 TV station in partnership with HEC. She has been awarded several distinctions Grand Officier de l’Ordre national du Mérite (France); Officier de la Légion d’Honneur (France) ; Grand Officier de l’Ordre de Léopold II (Belgium) ; Commandeur de l’Ordre du Mérite (Poland) ; Commandeur de l’Ordre du Mérite de la République fédérale d’Allemagne (Germany).

• Attorney at law
• Compliance – ESG – Litigation
• Partner