Kurt Wimmer

Kurt Wimmer is a partner at Covington & Burling LLP concentrating in technology and media law, as well as intellectual property and data privacy. Mr. Wimmer’s practice focuses on representing digital media, television, mobile, publishing, and new technology companies. His work includes strategic content ventures, copyright protection and strategy, content liability and newsgathering advice and litigation, television and digital licensing transactions, privacy and data protection, and international law. He also represents companies and associations on public policy matters before the Federal Communications Commission and Congress, including representation of a 70-member media coalition seeking passage of the Free Flow of Information Act. From 2006 to 2009, he was Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Gannett Co., Inc., and he was managing partner of Covington’s London office from 2000 to 2003. 

Mr. Wimmer’s clients include Microsoft, the Washington Post Company, Newsweek/the Daily Beast, National Geographic, Gannett Co., Inc., and Pearl Mobile DTV Co., LLC, as well as the National Association of Broadcasters and the Newspaper Association of America. He has advised journalists, associations, and legislators in more than two dozen countries concerning new media laws, protection of journalists, and freedom of information. He is chair of the First Amendment Advisory Council of the Media Institute and the D.C. Bar Committee on Media Law, and is a member of the board of directors of the Media Law Resource Center and past chair of its Defense Counsel Section. In 2010, he was given the
First Amendment Award by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (along with with Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein and Leslie Stahl).