Lovells

Matthew studied at Oxford University, qualified as a barrister in 1992 and joined Lovells in 1994. He qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and became a partner in 2002. He is resident in the firm's Brussels office.

Matthew works on a variety of transactional, advisory and contentious competition proceedings both before the European Commission and the European Courts, as well as before national competition authorities and courts.

He represented Royal P&O Nedlloyd in obtaining merger clearance for its acquisition by A.P. Moller Maersk, Royal P&O Nedlloyd in obtaining merger clearance for the Euromax container terminal joint venture, Royal Nedlloyd and P&O Nedlloyd in obtaining merger clearance for the acquisition of P&O's 50% stake in P&O Nedlloyd, and represented Wallenius Lines and Wilh Wilhelmsen Lines in obtaining merger clearance for their acquisition of Hyundai Merchant Marine's car carrying division. He acted for the members of the Trans-Atlantic Conference Agreement in obtaining exemption for the members' revised agreement and advises a variety of non-liner ocean carriers in relation to developments in the EU competition regulations.

He has acted for a variety of clients in annulment, appeal, interim measures and damages actions in the European Courts, including Mars (in proceedings relating to Unilever's ice-cream supply agreement), many liner shipping companies (including the record annulment of all the fines imposed in the TACA and FETTCSA cases), Corus and SCA.

He also advises on the application of EC competition law and the Gas Directive to projects and developments in the petroleum sector, with a particular emphasis on upstream work.