England - London • Corporate and commercial
5

EU and competition

Akin

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Boasting a client base that includes large multinationals, investment funds and top financial institutions, the ‘highly collaborative, effective and pragmatic’ team at Akin is renowned for its extensive expertise advising on multi-jurisdictional merger control, behavioural investigations, state aid, and complex litigation matters. Praised for her ’attention to detail’, practice head Davina Garrod advises numerous corporates and financial institutions on M&A, joint ventures, strategic alliances, restructuring and other forms of equity and debt investments. The ‘exceptional’ Scott Pettifor advises clients across a broad range of sectors, including telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, food, retail, media and insurance, on merger control matters and behavioural issues. Pettifor has also played an instrumental role in driving further growth within the London team.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘The Akin team stands out for being highly collaborative, effective and pragmatic. The team has a thorough understanding of commercial issues and the regulatory landscape. They're great to work with - super smart, collegial and respectful, and determined.’

  • ‘Scott Pettifor is an exceptional lawyer. He's strategic, sees the long game and is excellent at planning for highly challenging circumstances and scenarios. Highly committed to his clients. He's also easy to work with.’

  • ‘The team is very attentive and always eager to try to see around corners; all to see and foresee what next step may benefit the client.’

  • ‘Davina Garrod always has a positive mindset and attention to detail.’

  • 'A close-knit, high-energy team that always delivers and has a wealth of experience with regard to EU and UK procedures in particular. They are very pragmatic and nice to work with.'

  • 'Davina Garrod is a stand-out practitioner, whose enthusiasm and pragmatism are very infectious.'

Key clients

  • Singapore Airlines
  • Bank of America
  • Dropbox Inc.
  • Kingston Technology
  • GIC Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund
  • Vitol Group
  • SLB (formerly Schlumberger)
  • PIMCO Inc. (part of the Allianz Group)
  • Apollo Global Management
  • Olin Chemicals
  • UBS
  • Fortenova grupa

Work highlights

  • Representing global chemical powerhouse Olin Corporation on the corporate and competition aspects of its joint venture with Mitsui & Co., Ltd., the BWA JV.
  • Represented Vitol on its $2.3 billion public takeover of Vivo Energy, which was a transaction that required antitrust approval in 12 jurisdictions.
  • Represented a major fund manager in relation to the competition and regulatory approvals processes in multiple jurisdictions for the high-profile and controversial acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.

Lawyers

Leading partners
The strongest partners in their field, leading on market-leading deals and endorsed by peers and clients alike.
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
Next Generation Partners
Junior partners with significant recognition from clients and peers in the market and key roles on multiple matters.
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

Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Davina Garrod

Other key lawyers

Scott Pettifor, Marianna Meriani

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