Alber & Geiger

The firm was founded in 2007 as a spin-off of leading US lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates by its former European CEO Andreas Geiger, and former CDU politician and former member of the German Bundestag Siegbert Alber, who was also Vice President of the European Parliament and Advocate General at the European Court of Justice. Before that, Geiger was Head of the EU Law Center of Ernst & Young in Brussels and attorney at the law firm Taylor Wessing. He wrote a handbook on EU lobbying.

Controversy

In June 2012, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The Independent, a leading UK newspaper, revealed how senior members of the House of Lords failed to disclose their business interests in a public inquiry. On Lord Plumb's entry in the register of interests he lists his only remunerated employment/profession as 'farming' despite his involvement with the Brussels-based lobbying firm Alber and Geiger since 2007.

According to The Independent, Lord Plumb insists, he did not need to register his involvement because he had never been in employment, paid or unpaid by the firm which is typically the case in law firms with non-executive senior members.