Client services

Competition, state aid and merger control

As competition law increasingly influences critical aspects of corporate and commercial strategy, first-class competition advice is vital for doing business globally. An increasing number of transactions, commercial agreements and business practices have been subject to complex legal review in recent years. International trade developments affect many industries, presenting both business challenges and opportunities and often involving intricate legal issues.

It is in this context that the EU Commission and the UK Office of Fair Trading have become yet more active than previously in looking at merger control, licensing and distribution, intellectual property, restrictive practices, abuse of dominance, cartel investigations and related damages claims, compliance programmes, state aid, liberalisation, privatisation, public procurement and trade.

How Hill Dickinson can work with you

Hill Dickinson’s commercial group has all the expertise necessary to advise our clients, public and private, on issues of competition law and state aid, and on merger control (including advising on when a merger filing is necessary and on making filings to the Office of Fair Trading or to the competition authorities in Europe when required).

Our service package includes expertise on all of the following:

Horizontal agreements and concerted practices (i.e. those between business which compete with each other, or potentially do so): identifying danger areas, but using competition law to help clients maintain commercial advantage
Vertical agreements: helping avoid anti-competitive arrangements between businesses which operate at different levels of the supply chain – especially in the context of agency, distribution and franchising; helping clients avoid conduct which could amount to abuse of a dominant position; spotting such conduct by others, and advising strategically on how ton respond
Using competition law as an effective business tool: guiding clients in the use of restrictive covenants in supply-chain agreements as a business tool, but without infringing competition law.

Our expertise in state aid is often called upon by our public and private clients alike. We consider that an in-depth state aid capability is an essential complement to our public procurement practice, and we often advise on both issues together in the context of the same project. We can boast an extensive track record within the team, with previous experience in advising on ways to structure projects so as to pre-empt state aid issues, and on ways of reacting to state aid allegations (or the threat of them) by third-party complainants.