Geradin Partners

Geradin Partners is a specialist competition law, competition litigation and digital regulation firm. We were founded in Brussels in 2015 by one of Europe’s leading competition and regulatory lawyers, Damien Geradin. We opened in London in 2021 and in Amsterdam and Paris in 2024. Our team has more than 20 competition lawyers and is growing fast.

We offer a unique service to businesses who value deep knowledge and strategic thinking. Our team of lawyers is at the cutting edge of competition law and digital regulation. We have acted on many of the leading European and UK cases, and many of our partners held senior positions at competition agencies.

Tech is a particular area of expertise. We have been closely involved in the development of the new digital regulatory regimes in the EU and UK. We have chosen not to act for Google, Apple, Meta or Amazon, leaving us free of the conflict issues that most other top teams in London and Brussels face.

We also represent companies across a wide variety of other industries such as media, telecoms, gaming, pharmaceuticals, retailers, finance, sports, automotive, chemicals, clean energy, and heavy industry.

We have a wide range of international contacts within the antitrust community, and we frequently partner with other law firms. We are also increasingly approached by law firms around the world who are considering actions in their home jurisdictions.

WE FOCUS ON THREE PRIMARY AREAS:

Competition law, including competition authority investigations, merger and State aid control, and advisory work.

Competition litigation, including private damages actions and appeals against competition authority decisions.

Digital regulation, including the development and implementation of the EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the UK Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (DMCC) regimes, and the resulting investigations.

COMPETITION LAW

We have an excellent record in persuading competition authorities to launch investigations, and also in defending companies under investigation. Our team includes four former CMA officials and one EC official who have unmatched experience in running these cases.

In the EU, our firm has recently acted for clients in high-profile European Commission (EC) antitrust investigations, including acting for O2 (3G and 4G network-sharing agreements) and a large news publishers association (Ad Tech).

In the UK, we have represented clients in CMA investigations against Google (Privacy Sandbox, Ad Tech, and Play Store respectively), Apple (App Store) and Amazon (Marketplace). We have acted on high-profile mergers including Veolia/Suez and Microsoft/Activision.

In France, our firm represented the News Corp in the Autorité de la Concurrence (ADLC) investigation against Google (Ad Tech) which resulted in a $220 million fine. We also represented the complainant in the first phase of the ADLC’s investigation against Apple (App Tracking Transparency).

In the Netherlands, we represented Corendon in complex merger control proceedings before the European Commission and Dutch Competition Authority (phase II), and telecom company Simpel as a third party in the T-Mobile / Tele2 merger case before the European Commission. We also represented easyJet in high-stakes aviation regulatory matters relating to slot allocation and airport capacity.

COMPETITION LITIGATION

In the UK, we represent businesses in multibillion-pound class actions against Google (Ad Tech, Play Store) and Apple (App Store) and advise on other proposed and ongoing actions.

In the EU, we have led several leading Court of Justice cases, such as Huawei v ZTE and Slovak Telekom v EC, and some of our partners have directly contributed within the EU Courts tto the drafting of on seminal antitrust and State aid cases.

In the Netherlands, we have represented clients including Samsung, Polar Air/Atlas Air, online comparison platforms, news publishers against Google, and others in cases before the Dutch courts. In France, we represent hundreds of businesses and public entites in several hundreds of million-euros collective actions, including in the automobile sector.

We can assist companies who are considering launching private competition claims. We can also assist if a company is defending such an action. In many of our claims, we also worked on the underlying complaint to the competition authority that prompted public enforcement.

DIGITAL REGULATION

We are at the forefront of the development of the EU DMA and UK DMCC regimes. Our team of former UK CMA senior officials includes the director who led the Digital Markets Taskforce, which advised the UK Government on digital regulation.

We represent a wide variety of broadcasters, news publishers, app developers, gaming companies, search engines, e-commerce sellers and other companies in the development of these regimes and similar regimes elsewhere.

We act for the Coalition for App Fairness for EU and UK competition matters. We also co-founded the Responsible Online Commerce Coalition, which represents the interests of sellers who rely on Amazon and other ecommerce platforms to reach their customers.

In the UK, we are the only firm to have been invited to give testimony on the DMCC regime to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee and the House of Lords Digital Select Committee.

We write the widely acclaimed Platform Law Blog, which is read by thousands of policy makers and competition officials involved in digital regulation. We are frequently asked to speak at, and chair, conferences. We are quoted in publications including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Politico and Tech Crunch. We have appeared on the BBC, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, Sky News and BFM TV.

BRUSSELS

475 Avenue Louise

1000 Brussels

LONDON

14-18 Copthall Avenue,

London EC2N 2DL

AMSTERDAM

163 Keizersgracht,

1016 AL Amsterdam

PARIS

140 Boulevard Haussmann,

75008, Paris

[email protected]

GERADINPARTNERS.COM