Our Brussels practice is a market leader in competition and EU law, and includes the following services:
- Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures under the EC Merger Regulation, as well as under a range of national merger control regimes. We also co-ordinate multi jurisdictional merger clearances throughout Europe and elsewhere in the world. Examples include acting for Royal P&O Nedlloyd in its industry-transforming acquisition by A.P. Møller Maersk, the world's largest liner shipping company, and for APM Terminals in various joint venture transactions. Other examples concern a series of M&A transactions cleared for ALSTOM (power conversion, FlowSystems, Marine sector, Bouygues/French State, Ecotècnia, SBB railways, etc.) and Veolia Environmental Services (€ 868 million acquisition of Cleanaway from Brambles Industries);
- Cartel, abuse of dominance and other competition investigations. We represent companies involved in significant investigations by the European Commission (including as complainants), as well as coordinating approaches to national investigations within Europe and globally. Examples include representing Novell in the Microsoft case, and Mars in the Ice Cream case which created the judicial foundation for the Commission's 'Modernisation" reforms. We are also defending large companies in worldwide cartel investigations (gas insulated switchgear, airfreight, etc..);
- State aid investigations and advice. We regularly advise in relation to capital investments in State-owned firms, as well as on restructuring, privatisations and other public/private financing arrangements. Examples include acting for ALSTOM in the European Commission's high profile investigation of support offered by the French State in 2003-2004 and for other highly confidential and sensitive State aid issues, including rescue and restructuring aid, in a number of different Member States. We also assist companies in enforcing their rights under State aid law before national courts;
- Procurement. We provide advice on EU rules to bidders and contract awarding entities, in both the public and utility sectors. We have particular experience in the context of public/private financing arrangements. A recent example of our work is advising the European GNSS Supervisory Authority responsible for the Galileo satellite navigation system;
- EU Litigation. We represent clients before the European Courts in challenges to EU decisions or legislation. Examples include the successful challenge to the Tobacco Advertising Directive, and also competition cases such as Microsoft, the TACA case where we secured the annulment of fines totalling € 273 million, or the UFEX (DHL, Fedex) / Chronopost case where we secured the annulment of the Commission decision declaring that there was no State aid granted by the French State to La Poste’s express subsidiary, Chronopost.