Plesner
Plesner retains a strong track record for abuse and cartel cases involving Danish companies, and those investigated by the Danish competition authorities. Public procurement law is also a core pillar of the group’s work and it has extensive experience advising both contracting authorities and tenderers on all aspects of EU and Danish public procurement law, particularly matters regarding tenders relating to large-scale infrastructure projects. Practice head Gitte Holtsø is vastly experienced on high-profile merger cases, as well as cases involving cartels, other horizontal cooperation agreements, vertical agreements, abuse of dominance and competition law compliance. Daniel Barry comes recommended as a ‘very accomplished antitrust lawyer – very knowledgeable and has control of all aspects and details of the case he works on’. Christian Karhula Lauridsen is a go-to name for contentious matters in the space, whilst head of the economic analysis team Rie Paving Mortensen is a key contact for all things pertaining to complex mergers, international cartels and abuse of dominant position issues.
Legal 500 Editorial commentary
Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘The Plesner team is highly-skilled, business oriented and also very responsive and pleasant to work with. They manage to always display a great knowledge and provide to-the-point advice in relation to highly complex questions without taking too many reservations. The team excels in breaking down complex issues to manageable bite sizes and are always available and responsive. ’
‘We have most recently worked with Gitte Holtsø who is highly-skilled, has a great business acumen, is always pleasant to work with, very responsive and to-the-point in her advice. ’
‘Daniel Barry is exceptional at cutting to the core of complex issues and offering focused and easy-yo-digest advise.’
‘Solid advise in the area of competition law. Capacity and knowledge is good.’
‘Daniel Barry is vary accomplished antitrust lawyer. Very knowledgeable and has control of all aspects and details of the case he works on.’
Key clients
- Ørsted
- The Danish State (the Ministry of Finance)
- EQT Partners
- FSN Capital Partners
- Agilitas
- Volvo Danmark
- Sund & Bælt Holding
- British American Tobacco
- The Danish Central Bank (Nationalbanken)
- Danske Bank
- Nordea
- Novozymes
- Tryg
- Alstom
- Pfizer
- Coop
- TDC A/S (incl. Nuuday)
- Kalaallit Airports
- Nissan Nordic Europe
- Circle K
- Equinor
- Faerch
- Sampension Livsforsikring
- Commerz Real
- HTS
Work highlights
- Acts as lead counsel to Novozymes in connection with its combination with Chr. Hansen, the largest ever Danish merger.
- Defending Ørsted against a DKK 4.4 billion plus interest damages claim relating to alleged excessive pricing on the electricity spot market in Western Denmark.
- Represented Diesel Motor Nordic, a Danish distributor of spare parts for train engines manufactured by the German manufacturer Deutz AG, before the High Court of Eastern Denmark in an appeal against a 2013 decision by the Danish Competition Council finding, inter alia, that Diesel Motor Nordic and Deutz had entered into an anti-competitive agreement to prevent passive sales (parallel import) of the relevant products to distributors outside of Deutz' exclusive dealership network.
Lawyers
Leading individuals
Next Generation Partners
Rie Paving Mortensen has been involved in some of the largest and most complex cases in relation to competition law and the law of damages, by both Danish and international standards. Rie is the head of Plesner's economic analysis team consisting of highly specialized economists. Rie's competition law experience includes complex mergers, in particular phase II cases, international cartels and complex cases involving the abuse of a dominant position. In relation to both cartel-related and non-cartel related actions for damages, Rie has extensive experience in establishing the central elements of the counter factual scenario, handling settlement procedures and managing processes in relation to court appointed economic expert reports and testimonies, among other things. In addition, Rie prepares various types of economic analyses and carries out important investigations in matters relating to tax law, intellectual property law and corporate M&A. Rie holds a Master of Science (MSc) in Economics and a Master of Laws. In addition, she has studied at King's College London where she acquired her PG Diploma in EU competition law. Rie started her career working for the Danish Competition Authority and before taking up the position with Plesner in 2010 she was employed as an economist with Ørsted, where she particularly focused on analyses of competition law economics.
Practice head
The lawyer(s) leading their teams.
Gitte Holtsø