EU, Competition and Trade Regulatory

Lawyers acting at the forefront of EU, competition and trade regulatory matters

Our specialist EU, competition and regulatory practice covers a broad spectrum of EU/national antitrust and merger control, State aid, EU litigation, actions for damages, and EU and regulatory law matters.

The firm has a strong dedicated team based in London and Brussels and is also able to draw on a group of multilingual lawyers in diverse locations worldwide. We have established excellent professional relationships with the European Commission in Brussels and authorities across the globe.

The firm also has a team of lawyers across our core sectors and legal services who are on hand to guide clients through Brexit issues. Further details regarding how we can assist with Brexit issues may be found at http://www.hfw.com/Brexit.

What we do in EU, Competition and Regulatory

We work with a diverse range of clients, including large and small corporations, governments, public bodies and trade associations. As well as providing a stand-alone service to clients, we also provide support to other departments in the firm which deal on a daily basis with organisations engaged in international commerce and related transactions and disputes.

HFW's leading reputation in international commerce provides us with the platform to serve our clients' needs across a range of jurisdictions and industry sectors. We integrate our competition, State aid and EU law expertise with specific rules applicable in our core industry sectors, enabling us to provide our clients with a commercial and sector-focused approach to their legal requirements.

Members of our team are recognised as leading specialists in their fields, some having spent time at the European Commission, DG Competition, both the State aid and antitrust units. They are familiar with the relevant procedures and have good networking and other professional relationships with the case handlers.

Our lawyers have experience of working in-house in large corporations, particularly in the shipping, commodities, logistics, energy aviation and TMT sectors. We regularly represent companies before the European Commission and the national regulators, and challenge the decisions of those bodies before the European and national courts.

We offer training to our clients to enable them to compete aggressively while complying with competition rules. We have a large, fully trained, rapid response dawn raid team, to assist clients in the event of surprise investigations by the regulatory authorities.

Anthony Woolich is frequently quoted in the press, and was recently interviewed by Money Matters for Reuters TV on the topic of DPA's. You can watch the interview here.

Our experience in EU, Competition and Regulatory

Some examples of our recent work include:

• Advising a major logistics company on obtaining clearance of a merger from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.
• Acting for an aircraft engineering group in connection with obtaining merger clearances in Germany, China and South Korea for the restructuring of two joint venture companies which it had formed with a major engineering company and a major state-owned airline.

• Representing the Republic of Cyprus in a high profile and highly important CJEU proceeding concerning whether the EU Institutions have the exclusive competence to conclude the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Singapore and the EU.
• Advising a European Government on EU State aid law issues in international arbitrations.
• Obtaining a rare retrospective derogation from prior notification from the European Commission for a major commodities trader for its time sensitive acquisition of a competitor.
• Representing an international commodities trader in obtaining a worldwide freezing order against an individual listed under sanctions against Syria.
• Advising a well-known US brand on the customs classification of their exports to the EU.
• Developing an automated trade sanctions compliance tool for a major container shipping line.
• Advising on competition law aspects of transactions in the telecoms sector in Hong Kong.
• Advising on commercial agreements and arrangements under the Hong Kong Competition Ordinance.
• Advising competition and other regulators in Australia.
• Advising a leading engineering and infrastructure management company on the acquisition of an engineering company, including obtaining clearance from the relevant Australian competition regulator.

Digital Trade and the Law video series

View our Digital Trade and the Law video series for some general legal principles to consider in developing your digital platform capability within the EU.

Digital Platforms and the Law: An Overview

Digital Platforms and the Law: Data Protection

Digital Platforms and the Law: The Rules on Digital Commerce