EU and competition

Hall of Fame
The lawyers at the very top of the profession, widely known and respected by peers and clients for their longstanding involvement in market-leading work.
Antonio Bavasso
Hall of fameSimpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
Antonio is a leading antitrust lawyer. He advises on all aspects of antitrust law, practising primarily in London and Brussels. Antonio has extensive experience in merger reviews, government antitrust investigations, antitrust litigation, and counseling on a variety of competition issues. He advises clients across a broad range of industries, including the technology, media, and telecom sector, in a wide variety of matters before the European Commission, the United Kingdom Competition and Markets Authority, and other global competition authorities.
Claire Jeffs
Hall of fameSlaughter and May
Partner; Claire is Co-Chair of the Competition Group globally and works in Slaughter and May’s Brussels and London offices. Claire has extensive experience of both EU and UK competition law. She has been involved in a large number of high-profile merger cases before the EU and UK competition authorities, as well as coordinating merger approvals worldwide. On the contentious side, she has been involved in many cartel and other behavioural cases, including on appeal to the General Court in Luxembourg.
Bruce Kilpatrick
Hall of fameLinklaters LLP
Partner in the Addleshaw Goddard competition group, based in London, specialising in UK and EC competition and merger control law. Represents clients across a wide variety of sectors, including financial services, IT, industry, transport and retail and has acted on a wide range of cases in the UK and EC. These include: advising clients in recent CMA competition investigations (including construction and e-books); advising clients on recent merger control investigations (including Omnicell/Surgichem and Alliance Medical/IBA Molecular); advising clients in CMA market studies, market investigations, including retail banking, private motor insurance, PPI and NI banking.
Frances Murphy
Hall of fameMorgan, Lewis & Bockius UK LLP
Frances Murphy, a partner in the antitrust practice at Morgan Lewis, focuses on competition law and antitrust matters. Frances currently serves as Managing Partner of the firm’s London office. Frances represents clients in complex, high value global cartel investigations, alleged abuse of dominance matters and civil proceedings for damages for breach of competition law/antitrust laws. She has experience defending investigations by the competition authorities, in particular by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the Financial Conduct Authority, and the European Commission and in leading actions in the Competition Authority Tribunal, the English Courts, and the European Courts. For more information, view Frances’s bio at https://www.morganlewis.com/bios/francesmurphy.
Ali Nikpay
Hall of fameGibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Ali Nikpay serves as co-partner in charge of the London office at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is a co-chair of the firm’s Antitrust and Competition Group. He is regularly cited as one of Europe’s leading competition practitioners, with more than 25 years of EU and UK merger control and antitrust experience in both the private and public sectors.
Paula Riedel
Hall of fameKirkland & Ellis International LLP
Paula Riedel is a partner in Kirkland’s London office. Her practice spans the full spectrum of antitrust requirements, in particular multinational merger control, antitrust, state aid and general compliance.
Isabel Taylor
Hall of fameSlaughter and May
Partner; Isabel has a competition and regulatory practice and advises across a range of industries, including regulated industries, on merger control, general competition law, sectoral regulatory requirements, and public procurement.  She has a particular expertise in State aid law.
Rod Carlton
Hall of fameFreshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Alex Potter
Hall of fameFreshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.
Sally Evans
Kirkland & Ellis International LLP
Sally is a partner in the Antitrust and Competition team based in London. Her practice covers merger control, cartel investigations and compliance advice. Sally has extensive experience in managing multi-jurisdictional merger reviews and regularly represents private equity clients, corporates and financial institutions before the European Commission and UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”). Sally is dual qualified in England & Wales and Brussels.
Cameron Firth
Macfarlanes LLP
Cameron is an anti-trust lawyer with over 15 years’ experience practising all aspects of antitrust law in the UK and the EU. Cameron regularly represents a wide range of clients before the UK Competition & Markets Authority and the European Commission, as well as before the English and European Courts. Cameron advises clients on the full range of antitrust law issues, including: obtaining merger control clearances from regulators throughout the world; dawn raids and inspections undertaken by the UK and EU regulators; investigations (both by regulators and internal) in relation to anti-trust compliance; and providing advice and guidance on anti-trust and state aid compliance for both dominant and non-dominant companies. Cameron has extensive experience of antitrust and regulatory litigation before the English Courts and the European Courts in relation to antitrust and regulatory issues, including cartel damages cases, having represented parties claiming damages as well as parties defending such claims. Cameron has particular expertise in the application of antitrust law in the retail/consumer sector as well as the application of both antitrust law and IP/regulatory law in the pharmaceutical and media/telecoms/broadcasting sectors. Cameron has a BA (Hons) in Law from the University of Cambridge and a Masters in European Law from the Institute of European Studies, University of Brussels. Cameron also has experience of working for the regulator, having worked for DG Competition.
Davina Garrod
Akin
Davina Garrod is co-head of Akin's global antitrust & competition practice and head of Akin's international competition group. She advises multinationals, corporates and financial institutions on mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and restructurings. With more than 24 years’ experience, in addition to navigating and obtaining antitrust and regulatory approvals for complex transactions within and outside of Europe, and negotiating remedies packages, Davina represents sovereign wealth funds, private equity (PE) firms and banks in the context of their strategic and financial investments (transactional and contentious). Davina also represents companies active in, inter alia, technology, communications, chemicals, energy, transportation, defence, retail and industrials in behavioural EC Article 101/102 and UK Ch.I/Ch.II investigations, and other investigations by government agencies and regulators globally, including UK National Security & Investment Act/European FDI, EU/UK State aid/subsidies, competition/regulatory appeals, and private damages claims before the CAT/courts. To learn more about Ms. Garrod, please visit her full profile: https://www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/davina-garrod.html
Suyong Kim
Hogan Lovells International LLP
Based in London as Global Co-Head of Hogan Lovell's Antitrust, Competition and Economic Regulation practice and with extensive experience of working in the Brussels competition environment, Suyong is one of only a handful of EU practitioners equally at home handling complex mergers and JVs, high stakes cartel and abuse of market power investigations, as well as the resulting appeals and damages litigation before the EU and national courts.
Stephen Smith
Bristows LLP
Stephen has 20 years’ experience advising across a broad range of EU and UK competition law matters. Stephen’s practice includes distribution agreements, merger control, cartels and anti-trust investigations, abuse of dominance and competition litigation. Stephen has represented clients before the European Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK and on appeals both to the European courts in Luxembourg and to the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal. He advised the Société Co-opérative de Production (SCOP), the company operating Eurotunnel’s MyFerryLink business, in its landmark appeal. The case was the first ever jurisdictional challenge under the merger provisions of the Enterprise Act to reach the Supreme Court in the UK. Stephen also advised the owners of the Evening Standard and the Independent in the Competition Appeals Tribunal on their successful jurisdictional challenge against the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Support’s attempt to intervene in the sale of a minority stake to overseas investors.More recently, Stephen has been advising Dutch listed home furnishings group Hunter Douglas in respect of the CMA’s Phase 1 and Phase 2 reviews of the completed acquisition of 247 Home Furnishings. Stephen is recognised by his clients as adept at providing pragmatic, commercial advice and his experience spans diverse sectors including life sciences, financial services, retail, manufacturing, telecommunications and technology. He has also has experience of working inside a regulator, having worked at OFCOM, the UK’s communication regulator, earlier in his career. Stephen is fluent in French and is a former Chair of the Law Society’s Competition Section, where he remains a member of the Committee.
Tom Usher
Macfarlanes LLP
Tom advises on all aspects of EU and UK competition law including competition compliance, merger clearance, the treatment of vertical agreements and abusive practices, cartels and other horizontal agreement between competitors and state aid, acting for financial institutions, retailers, manufacturers, broadcasters, collecting societies and content providers. Tom has a particular focus on the financial services sector and other regulated industries and has considerable expertise in advising on sectoral inquiries in relation to financial services, broadcasting markets, extended warranties and pricing issues. He has brought and defended a number of actions based on competition law and wider EU and public law issues, before the UK domestic courts and in Europe and has been involved in leading cases in the betting and gaming and broadcasting sectors dealing with collective selling, exclusive licensing arrangements, database rights and regulatory issues.
Malcolm Walton
Macfarlanes LLP
Malcolm is head of the firm’s competition group and his experience covers a broad range of competition work. Malcolm has represented a number of clients that have been the subject of investigations by the Competition and Markets Authority (the CMA) (and its predecessors), the FCA and the European Commission into suspected price-fixing or cartel activity and regularly advises interested parties, including complainants, in abuse of dominance cases. He also provides competition law compliance advice, programmes and seminars to both corporate clients and trade associations. Malcolm regularly deals with the European Commission and the UK’s CMA in merger cases, advising clients from a variety of industry sectors as well as several private equity investors, and manages clearance requirements in respect of many other foreign competition authorities on large cross-border transactions. Malcolm advises clients on the regulatory requirements in a number of industry sectors including pharmaceuticals and aviation. He also advises clients on a wide range of competition related issues such as licensing and distribution, franchising, parallel importing, commercial joint-ventures and strategic alliances. Malcolm is recognised as a leading individual in competition law by Chambers. He is a regular contributor to legal journals and speaks at conferences.
Rona Bar-Isaac
Addleshaw Goddard
Kim Dietzel
Herbert Smith Freehills LLP
Natura Gracia
Linklaters LLP
Next Generation Partners
Junior partners with significant recognition from clients and peers in the market and key roles on multiple matters.
Marta Isabel Garcia
Stephenson Harwood
An EU and UK competition law expert, Marta is well-known for advising clients on global multi-jurisdictional merger control, cartel and behavioural investigations. Clients highly value her practical and commercial approach to complicated antitrust issues, and her real ability to provide global insights to increasingly global antitrust issues. Marta also advises on foreign direct investment rules. Marta joined us from international law firm Clifford Chance LLP and prior to this she was at Baker & McKenzie LLP (which included a year-long secondment to their Brasilia office, the capital of Brazil). Marta has significant experience advising companies on merger control issues arising in all different types of corporate transactions both in the UK and EU as well as globally. She regularly advises on jurisdictional and substantive merger control issues, due diligence, data room procedures and clean teams, gun-jumping and information exchange. Marta also has extensive experience advising and defending companies involved in international cartels and abuse of dominance investigations by the European Commission, the European courts and the UK competition authorities. She assists companies on all stages of investigations, from any unannounced inspections through to internal investigations/audits, leniency/immunity applications, preparation of defences, settlements and appeals before the courts. Marta also advises more generally on competition compliance and commercial agreement matters, including the review of commercial arrangements such as distribution, agency, R&D, specialisation, selective distribution and franchising systems, joint ventures and strategic alliances. Marta also advises on foreign direct investment rules, in particular, the UK's new National Security & Investment Act and public interest regime under the Enterprise Act. She has worked with companies across various industries (in particular, shipping, rail, consumer goods and retail, life sciences, energy, financial services and banking, insurance, real estate and funds and asset management) and her work has taken her across the globe (i.e. Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa). Marta is renowned for her extremely knowledgeable, technical yet straightforward and practical approach which is appreciated by clients.
Jessica Gardner
Fieldfisher
Partner in the Competition and Regulatory Group at Fieldfisher, based in London.  More than 12 years of experience advising UK and international clients on a range of competition law matters, including dawn raids, CMA investigations, market studies, abuses of market power, merger control and antitrust litigation.  Jessica also leads on Fieldfisher's offering of ESG regulatory support in the UK.  Jessica advises across all sectors, with particular expertise in food and beverage, retail/consumer goods and life sciences. She is well regarded in the market, having been named in law.com's Rising Star awards in 2022 as one of the UK's Top 25 up and coming female lawyers under 40, listed as a Next Generation Partner in Legal 500 2023 and 2024 and awarded Runner Up in the 'Lawyer of the Year' category at the Modern Law Awards in 2022.
Anna Mitchell
Linklaters LLP
Anna is a partner in the antitrust & foreign investment group at Linklaters. She has almost 15 years’ of experience advising clients on a range of complex competition matters, in particular complex UK and EU merger control, UK public takeovers, global foreign direct investment and market studies. More recently, she has been guiding clients through the new EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation. She is well recognised in the market and, in particular, has recently been named in the Global Competition Review “40 under 40” 2023 for Foreign Investment Control, as a “Shining Star” in Antitrust 2023 by W@Competition, as a “Future Leader” in Who’s Who Legal: Competition and as a “Next Generation Partner” in Legal 500’s rankings.
Scott Pettifor
Akin
Scott Pettifor advises on merger cases (at an EU, U.K. and multijurisdictional level), behavioral issues and the application of sectoral regulations. Scott’s understanding of the merger control landscape is significant and affords him the ability to provide succinct, actionable advice. He provides multijurisdictional advice on large global transactions for merging parties as well as for the financial institutions with related exposure. Scott regularly obtains merger control approvals for clients before the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and is well placed to assist clients in a post-Brexit environment. He acted for a client on one of the first transactions to be approved by the CMA under the revised de minimis regime introduced in 2017. His work has spanned myriad industry sectors, including: Telecommunications Food and retail Investments Pharmaceutical Aviation Energy services Media Insurance To learn more about Mr. Pettifor, please visit his full profile: www.akingump.com/en/lawyers-advisors/scott-pettifor.html
Satyen Dhana
Simmons & Simmons
Satyen specialises in EU, competition, trade and regulatory law and has extensive experience of their application within a wide range of industries. He has advised on both UK and EU competition investigations and sector enquiries/market investigations, as well as Phase 1 and Phase 2 UK and EU merger investigations.
Leading associates
Rising stars with regular involvement in their team's key work, and recognition from peers or clients as being ones to watch.
Verity Egerton-Doyle
Linklaters LLP
Verity is a partner in Linklaters’ London Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group and co-head of the UK technology sector team and Co-Head of Games and Interactive Entertainment. Verity has over a decade of experience across advisory, investigatory and transactional aspects of competition law in the EU and the UK, including representing clients in both regulatory appeals and stand-alone antitrust litigation before the UK courts. She is particularly familiar with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, having spent time on secondment to the CMA’s mergers group, during which she sat on the CMA’s Mergers Intelligence Committee. Verity has particular expertise in competition issues related to market power in dynamic and innovation-driven markets. She is recognised as a leading expert on competition and regulatory issues in the tech sector and on platform regulation regimes.

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