EU Competition, Merger Control and State Aids
Our highly experienced team of specialist advisers prides itself on providing pragmatic and commercial advice to a wide range of businesses, central government bodies, local authorities and education clients.
We advise on a broad range of competition matters, including M&A, EU and UK competition law compliance and EU State Aid issues. Notably, we recently advised one of the South West region's largest public sector organisations on a highly complex audit dealing with intricate competition law matters.
A number of the advisers in the competition team are also experts on EU Public Procurement law, and the team works closely with other specialist teams across the firm, including Commercial, Disputes, Mergers & Acquisitions, Public Sector, Projects and Technology, Media and Communications.
Areas of Practice include:
- Abuse of a dominant position: pricing and rebates, access issues, refusal to supply, and exclusivity provisions
- Agency agreements, vertical agreements (including IP Rights), selective distribution agreements, exclusive arrangements, franchising and other arrangements between suppliers, wholesalers and retailers
- Block exemptions i.e. R&D, Technology transfer and licensing issues and Vertical Agreements (and Vertical Restraints) and Specialisation block exemption
- Cartels and Bid-Rigging: defence, dawn raids, leniency applications and advice on criminal sanctions
- Competition law compliance programmes and training
- Compliance and risk audits
- Merger control including takeovers and joint ventures
- EU State Aids including grant funding and subsidy arrangements, notifications and State Aid approvals, formal investigations, defences and awareness training
