Linklaters

Our  dedicated competition lawyers work across Europe, the US, China and the developing competition regimes of Asia. We also have alliances with leading law firms in Australia (Allens) and South Africa (Webber Wentzel). Clients come to us for expert, commercial advice on their most complex national, EU and global antitrust matters.  

The multi-national and multi-lingual nature of our team allows us to understand the national policy concerns that shape global competition policy and to maintain strong relationships with authorities and enforcement agencies across the globe.  We regard a deep understanding of our clients’ business and strategy as essential to successfully defending their interests. Our ability to quickly get to grips with new businesses is a key strength.

Linklaters’ unrivalled competition law expertise covers merger control, market and sector investigations, abuse of dominance, State aid, public procurement and utilities regulation; as well as the full cartel investigation lifecycle, from internal investigations and compliance, to dawn raids, optimising tactics in the administrative cartel investigation, appeal and follow on claims.  Our eLearning tool, which is available in a number of languages including Mandarin, also offers an economic and effective way of achieving global training on competition law issues.  We also provide ‘train the trainer’ sessions so in-house legal and compliance teams are able to provide ongoing specialist support with confidence 

Recent transactions include advising:

• Anglo American on its joint venture with Lafarge to create a leading UK construction materials company
• Glencore on its acquisition of the remaining stake in Xstrata, to create a major natural resources group with a combined equity market value of US$90bn

• KPMG in relation to the OFT market study and current Competition Commission  market investigation into audit services

• Johnson & Johnson on EU and global merger clearances required to acquire Synthes Inc., a global supplier of orthopaedic devices. This was Johnson & Johnson’s largest ever acquisition

• a leading airline regarding the air cargo cartel, and subsequent private class action litigation, which was investigated by the European Commission, US Department of Justice and various non EU Authorities

• the immunity applicant in the global marine hoses cartel which involved an unprecedented plea agreement and the first UK criminal cartel prosecution

• leading industry players on the European Commission’s healthcare sector investigation and other national investigations including in the energy, groceries, banking and fuel sectors

• twenty major financial institutions across Europe on State aid issues arising from the financial crisis including bank rescues, restructuring and recapitalisation