Bristows LLP

Stephen Smith

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.