Key Contacts
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Antitrust Audits, Compliance and Counseling
Our lawyers are skilled in evaluating clients’ antitrust compliance policies and systems to minimize antitrust risks, while still allowing business objectives to be met. It is more important than ever to have an effective antitrust auditing and compliance program. Government fines and civil damages have reached levels that can threaten a company's very existence. Moreover, the real threat of jail time for individuals is no longer constrained by US borders. Non-US executives are regularly imprisoned in the United States, and European jurisdictions are beginning to enact criminal penalties for individual cartel participants.Learn More -
Antitrust Litigation
“The firm is at its best during a fight—whether that’s against an enforcer, or in court against a private litigant.” — Global Competition ReviewLearn More -
Brussels/EU
Our experienced team helps clients from around the globe navigate the complex world of EU law, regulation and policy.Learn More -
Cartel Enforcement
Our transatlantic practice makes us one of the few firms able to provide an integrated approach in the growing number of cartel investigations conducted in parallel by authorities in Europe, the United States and other jurisdictions.Learn More -
EU Antitrust and Competition
WilmerHale Brussels has a collegial team culture geared to providing results in often-demanding proceedings. We have extensive experience in all areas of EU competition law, including mergers before the European Commission, worldwide merger control filings, cartel investigations (in Europe and worldwide), abuse of monopoly power, and State aid cases. We also regularly provide transactional advice, supporting joint ventures and distribution systems.
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German Antitrust and Competition Merger Control
Our German and international clients turn to us for complex, high-profile regulatory matters that involve both antitrust rules and sector-specific regulation, as well as additional legislative and policy issues. We have represented Germany’s leading players in the air transport, railway, telecommunications and energy industries in major transactions and investigations. In addition, we regularly advise and represent major domestic and multinational companies in, among others, the waste treatment, logistics, finance, travel, media, shipbuilding, engineering, chemicals, and wholesale and retail sectors.Learn More -
Government Competitive Practices Investigations
Both in Europe and the United States, competition authorities are more actively investigating the conduct of allegedly dominant firms and looking for collaborations among competitors that may restrict competition.Learn More -
Intersection of Antitrust and IP
WilmerHale is uniquely positioned to provide counseling, strategic advice and litigation representation to clients confronting issues involving both antitrust and intellectual property law—and the intersection between the two.Learn More -
Merger Clearance
Our experience in merger review builds from a long tradition of involvement in the development of merger clearance regimes in the United States, Europe and around the world.Learn More -
UK Competition
We advise on all aspects of UK and EU competition law, including merger notifications, cartel immunity/leniency applications and damages actions. We represent clients before the Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission, and in litigation before the High Court, Competition Appeals Tribunal, the Court of Appeal and the EU Courts.Learn More
WilmerHale Recognized as Competition Group of the Year by Law360
RecognitionWilmerHale Antitrust and Competition Work Shortlisted for Five Global Competition Review Awards
RecognitionExperience
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Merger Clearance
Represented Danaher Corporation in connection with the global merger review of the $20 billion acquisition of GE Healthcare’s Biopharma business.
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Merger Clearance
Represented Baker Hughes in connection with the global merger review of the $32 billion combination with GE Oil & Gas, and previously with regard to Halliburton's proposed $34.6 billion acquisition of Baker Hughes. -
Litigation
Represented one of the world's largest auto parts manufacturers in resolving its criminal liability in the US, parallel cartel proceeding before the European Commission, and follow on US civil litigation. -
Litigation
Won a resounding victory as co-lead trial counsel for clients T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom in a landmark antitrust trial in which Attorneys General from 13 states and the District of Columbia failed in their effort to enjoin the merger of T-Mobile and Sprint. -
Competition Defense
Representing Apple, Broadcom, Research in Motion and other industry participants in cases in the United States and throughout the world asserting Sherman Act Section 2 and breach of contract claims arising out of a competitor’s refusal to license patents declared essential to industry standards on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. -
Merger Clearance
Advising leading academic publisher Springer Science Business Media (SSBM) in securing merger control clearance from the US Department of Justice, the European Commission and several further authorities worldwide for the combination of SSBM with the majority of Holtzbrinck-owned Macmillan Science and Education (namely Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan and the global businesses of Macmillan Education) in a joint venture with approximately EUR 1.5 billion in annual revenues. -
Litigation
Representing Cephalon in a prominent action brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and in separate antitrust actions by putative classes of direct and indirect purchasers of Provigil®, as well as by a would-be generic competitor, Apotex, Inc., all of which challenge Cephalon’s settlement of Hatch-Waxman patent litigation. -
Litigation
Representing Intel in FTC Part 3 litigation, where the FTC alleged unlawful monopolization of markets for computer microprocessors and graphics processing. -
Acquisition Clearance
Obtaining US clearance for International Paper’s acquisition of Temple-Inland and obtaining US, German and Chinese clearance for its acquisition of Weyerhauser’s containerboard business.
Recognition
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Top Practice Area
The Legal 500
2018–2022
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Competition Group of the Year
Law360
2020
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Litigation of the Year Award
Global Competition Review
2017-2019
- Law360 named WilmerHale a 2020 Competition Group of the Year, a recognition which featured the firm's litigation wins and major deals that resonated throughout the legal industry.
- U.S. News - Best Lawyers® Best Law Firms regularly recognizes our antitrust practice on its annual list.
- Chambers Global recognized our antitrust practice in Belgium, the United States and globally from 2014–2024.
- Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business consistently ranks our Antitrust and Cartel Enforcement practices in California, Massachusetts, Washington DC and nationally--most recently in 2022. In recent publications, clients have praised the practice's "solid and strategic" work and "responsive, wise and creative" approach, and placed us "at the very top for US law firms in cartel work."
- Chambers Europe: Leading Lawyers for Business regularly recognizes WilmerHale’s competition practice in Germany and Belgium, most recently in 2021 and 2022.
- The Legal 500 US and The Legal 500 Germany has awarded WilmerHale top rankings across the areas of antitrust since the inception of the legal directory guides.
- Global Competition Review (GCR) consistently ranks WilmerHale among its list of "Top 20 GCR Global Elite" law firms. In addition, the firm is recognized as a standout antitrust and competition practice leader in Brussels, California, Germany, Massachusetts and Washington DC. In 2017–2019, the firm has been recognized for Litigation of the Year–Cartel Defence and in 2017 also for Litigation of the Year–Cartel Prosecution.
- Handelsblatt Best Lawyers named several WilmerHale lawyers from the Berlin and Frankfurt offices as "Best Lawyers" in Germany in the 2013–2018 editions.