A young Hogan Lovells associate was among the victims of Friday’s (13 November) terrorist attack in Paris, which has so far claimed 129 lives.
The 26-year old Valentin Ribet, who had completed an LLM at the London School of Economics last year and studied at the Sorbonne in Paris, was among those killed at the Bataclan concert hall.
He had worked as an associate in the litigation team, specialising in white collar crime, after completing his training at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Simmons & Simmons. Ribet had been part of the team acting for Kazakhstan bank BTA in the extradition case of its former chairman, Mukhtar Ablyazov. The billionaire was implicated in an alleged fraud that hit British banks including Royal Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Standard Chartered and HSBC.
In the wake of the attack, Hogan Lovells issued a statement: ‘Hogan Lovells is deeply saddened to report the death of Valentin Ribet. Valentin was at the Bataclan concert hall and he was killed in the attack that took place there. This is an awful tragedy and hard for any of us to truly comprehend. We are shocked by both our loss and the wider events in the city. He was a talented lawyer, extremely well liked, and a wonderful personality in the office. Our thoughts at this time are with Valentin and his family as well as with his colleagues in the office and across the firm. As a mark of respect to Valentin, we are keeping his details on our website until after his funeral.’
Ribet was one of the first confirmed fatalities from the coordinated gun and bomb attacks in the worst act of terrorism in Europe since the Madrid train bombings of 2004, which claimed the lives of 191 people.
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk