Our specialist team has experience of working within and dealing with the European Commission and national competition authorities such as the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the German Bundeskartellamt, and the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, as well as actions before national and EU courts and beyond.
What sets us apart is our commitment to support our clients' commercial strategy with practical and cost-efficient Competition/antitrust advice. With a strong team of highly experienced lawyers based across Europe, our Competition team delivers clear, and partner-led guidance, in a characteristically approachable way.
Competition investigations and disputes
Articles 101 and 102 of the EU Treaty (and their equivalent national rules such as those in the UK Competition Act 1998) prohibit both anti-competitive agreements and concerted practices as well as the abuse of a dominant position. If found guilty of such anti-competitive behaviour companies face fines of up to 10% of their worldwide turnover plus unlimited actions for damages that their trading partners may bring in national courts. In addition, the laws of the UK and several EU Member States provide for director disqualifications and criminal liability against individuals for the worst offences thereby increasing the stakes for the non-compliant actor.DWF offers a full client service in all of the above aspects of competition law across national jurisdictions and at the UK and EU level. This includes advice on the existence of cartels, abuse of dominance, litigation actions (including damages), leniency programmes, individual personal liability questions, antitrust audits, compliance programmes and dawn raid management. We act for clients in investigations (individual or sectoral) by the UK and EU authorities and represent complainants and defendants in proceedings before UK and EU courts and in arbitration involving UK and EU and Competition Law.
Commercial agreements
We advise on how Competition Law interacts with commercial agreements. This includes advice on day-to-day business conduct. We provide pragmatic and focused counsel to manage any Competition Law risk, in particular in relation to cross-border distribution and supply arrangements, online sales, exclusivity arrangements and co-operation agreements of all kinds. Such advice often depends very much on the markets concerned and the market power of the parties (including possible questions of dominance). Our advice is tailored to take this into account in order to deliver optimal risk / result outcomes.Merger Control
Mergers and acquisitions may trigger merger control filing requirements in one or more national jurisdictions - such as to the UK Competition and Markets Authority or the European Commission via the EU Merger Control Regulation - if the companies concerned exceed certain turnover and other thresholds. Depending on jurisdictions, Failure to notify can lead to a variety of investigations, fines, and even divestment orders. In some cases merger control filings can become the key factor in whether major mergers and acquisitions can proceed safely or not. They will also have key effects on timings of relative exchange of contracts and completion. Handling merger control filings carefully is therefore a critical aspect of a transaction and so it is vital to get this right from the beginning.
DWF guides clients through the relevant merger control processes by advising in relation to ascertaining relevant notification obligations and on strategic options, particularly in relation to those jurisdictions such as the UK where notifications in advance of completion may not be mandatory. DWF then advises on the process of notifying qualifying mergers to the relevant authorities to obtain all required approvals. This service provides a "one stop shop" to our corporate and investment clients. We combine our expertise of national merger control laws with our EU experience to provide clients with the complete package to suit every transaction, irrespective of size.
State aid and Subsidy Control
DWF has a market leading practice in all aspects of handling subsidies and grant funding. Our experience includes the full range of EU State aid issues and leading expertise in the development of the post-Brexit UK regime of Subsidy Control in parallel. We have also advised extensively on trade defence anti-subsidy cases and related WTO law and procedures and latterly the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation.
Our day-to-day State aid and Subsidy Control practice includes advising subsidy applicants from multi-national corporates with major inward investment projects to research institutions, developers and infrastructure builders and others. We also advise Central Government, Regional Government and Local Government on State aid and Subsidy Control compliance. This includes notifications to the European Commission and more recently on several, high profile and novel referrals to the UK Competition and Markets Authority under the new (UK) Subsidy Control Act 2022.
We have an excellent reputation in defending projects from audits and investigations, including making representations in front of European Courts, DG COMP and the European Court of Auditors. In the UK we successfully defended Durham Council in the first litigated judgment under the Subsidy Control Act 2022. We provide clear and pragmatic advice to achieve our clients' objectives and our team is experienced in advising on all related aspects such as grant funding agreements, public law and public procurement, including ensuring compliance and defending or bringing challenges.
Find out more about our State aid and Subsidy Control expertise >
Foreign Investment and National Security
Aligned to our merger control transactional support, we advise clients on further regulatory filings as may be required by relevant national security provisions related to foreign investment. In the UK this is notably the National Security and Investment Act 2021, which establishes a screening process for transactions that may pose national security risks in the UK. Our team has extensive experience in advising clients on whether certain aspects of their transactions need to be reported to the Investment Security Unit (ISU). We have experience in preparing both mandatory and voluntary notifications to the ISU and responding to any information requests received from the unit. Our advice is always tailored to the specific facts of each case, ensuring a sensitive and customised approach.
Dawn Raids
Our Competition Law team provides clients with a full service for preparing for and managing so-called dawn raids or other unannounced regulatory inspections as may arise. Our team has experience of conducting (as part of the regulator) and defending live dawn raids as they happen, and we have provided extensive training to clients to prepare for the possibility of such an event happening.
