Graeme Young

Practice Areas

Graeme Young is a partner specialising in all aspects of UK and EU antitrust, competition and trade. He has over 20 years’ experience advising a wide range of clients on competition compliance, commercial agreements and sales practices, competition and regulatory investigations and merger control. He is also well-known for his advice on public procurement and State aid matters.

Graeme also advises on public procurement and state aid issues. He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in Public Procurement Law and is an active member of the UK Procurement Lawyers Association. He regularly advises on procurement and state aid aspects of IT and capital infrastructure projects and on procurement challenges.

Graeme is dual-qualified (Scotland and England & Wales) and EU list registered and regulated by the Dutch Brussels Bar. He has an LL.M from the College of Europe, in Bruges, and is a former Chair of the Competition Section of the Law Society of England & Wales and a member of the Steering Committee of the Scottish Competition Forum.

With a reputation for giving practical commercial advice on complex competition and regulatory issues he is "impressively focused on getting the right result for the client" Chambers UK.

Professional Memberships

Former Chair, The Law Society's Competition Section

Procurement Lawyers’ Association

UK State Aid Law Association

Scottish Competition Forum

Work Highlights

A Competition Act investigation into suppliers of access control and alarm systems to retirement homes.

A major financial institution on compliance and dawn raids.

A major energy utility on competition (metering), regulatory and procurement matters (gas holder decommissioning).

A major energy utility on a Competition Act investigation by Ofgem (abuse of dominance).

Merger control assessment of a UK acquisition of a company engaged in supplying ingredients and accessories for the ice cream industry.

Scottish Water on the introduction of retail competition in Scotland.

Patersons of Greenoakhill Ltd v South Lanarkshire Council [2014] (successful defence of an award decision and securing lifting of automatic suspension).

British Telecommunications plc v NHS Scotland [2014] (successful defence of an award decision and securing lifting of automatic suspension).

Buchanan Partnership on funding and contract arrangements for the Buchanan Quarter Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) scheme (procurement and state aid).

City of Edinburgh Council on procurement and state aid aspects of its Connected Capital Wi-Fi project.

Transport Scotland on the procurement of a number of major road and rail projects (under competitive dialogue), including the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR), M8 improvements and the new Borders Railway.

Education