Mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures
Competition law can have a serious impact on M&A transactions. Most significant deals call for complex, swift and high profile dialogue with competition regulators around the world.
You can rely on the expertise of our competition lawyers, based in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, Africa, and Latin America for commercially minded and seamless advice on both domestic and cross-border merger control issues. We have a substantial track record in M&A and joint venture transactions, acting in major multi-jurisdictional cases, with a sound understanding of the complex legal and economic issues involved and familiarity with the relevant competition authorities and processes.
Prominent corporates and financial institutions place their trust in the ability of our broader transactional teams to understand their business; we represent clients across the full range of our key industry sectors: financial institutions; energy; infrastructure, mining and commodities; transport; technology and innovation; and pharmaceuticals and life sciences.
Our firm’s transactional teams include not only competition lawyers, but also our internationally recognised corporate finance team, as well as economists, financial advisers and public affairs consultants.
Our areas of work include:
- phase 1 and phase 2 merger investigations
- negotiation of conditional clearance arrangements (undertakings, commitments and consent agreements)
- foreign investment as well as competition approvals
Our recent work:
- Advising G4S plc in the UK on the £5.2 billion acquisition of ISS
- Advising Stena Line on its acquisition of DFDS's Irish Sea Ferry Operators, securing unconditional phase 2 clearance
- Advising The Departments of Economic Development; Trade and Industry and Agriculture; and Forestry and Fisheries in South Africa in a successful appeal to the Competition Appeal Court in relation to the Competition Tribunal’s decision on the acquisition of Massmart by Wal-Mart
- Advising the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission on the merger clearance action sought by APA Group in its AU$800 million hostile bid for the Epic Pipeline business of Hastings Diversified Fundson