Freshfields keeps its position in the top tier. "An excellent firm, breadth and depth everywhere," says a peer....
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Freshfields keeps its position in the top tier. "An excellent firm, breadth and depth everywhere," says a peer.
The firm has a good group of partners who are well known amongst the leading practitioners, among them John Davies (who became practice group leader in 2010), David Broomhall, Frank Montag, Michael Esser (on the German side), Andreas von Bonin (an expert in state aid) and Laurent Garzaniti (on the Belgian side).
The firm's most prestigious work over the past year saw Esser achieve full immunity for Chiquita in the Commission's cartel investigation into the banana market and successfully guide NEC Corporation through the Commission's new cartel settlement process, culminating in the first ever settlement under new rules in a core cartel case.
In other work, Alan Ryan managed to get Emirates (airline) excluded from the Commission air cargo cartel investigation and assisted Aegean Airlines and Olympic Air on merger control issues.
Broomhall advised Rosneft on its €12 billion alliance with BP and Davies acted for Blue Sky consortium, a group comprising ArcelorMittal, Nyrstar, Solvay, Tessenderlo Chemie and others, on a proposed joint investment with Electrabel. Garzaniti advised for Solvay on its €3.4 billion acquisition of Rhodia.
Overall the team played active roles in cartel cases, merger review processes, state aid cases (for clients including ING and Volvo), behavioural and regulatory cases and public affairs matters.
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