The Paul, Weiss Antitrust Practice advises clients on a full range of global antitrust matters, including antitrust regulatory clearance, government investigations, private litigation, and counseling and compliance. The firm represents clients before antitrust and competition authorities in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and other jurisdictions around the world.
Nicole Kar Discusses UK’s Antitrust Renaissance With Legal Business
August 2, 2024
Antitrust partner Nicole Kar spoke with Legal Business about the expanding scope of antitrust law and policy in the UK post-Brexit, the continued increase in M&A activity despite heightened regulatory scrutiny, and the antitrust hiring spree among law firms prompted by the UK’s growing role on the regulatory world stage. In “Antitrust renaissance: navigating deals amid agency crackdowns,” published on August 2, Nicole notes that regulatory authorities worldwide are increasingly prioritizing consumer protection in their enforcement actions, and that this often overlaps with competition law.
“An important complement to agency enforcement is private enforcement of these rights,” Nicole says. “Quite a few of these claims look to be competition claims that are really at their heart consumer claims, so allegations of excessive pricing, or not paying for data. These are really I would say classically consumer issues, but they’ve been presented as competition law issues.”
Nicole adds that rebounding M&A activity means that regulatory agencies are in for an eventful year. “It’s a busy time in the market, the agencies have been busy with increased M&A flows so, after a quieter couple of years on the M&A front, every day the markets are picking up and you can see that in the number of notifications we’re making, and agencies are having to handle,” she says.
In addition to new legal developments and agency strategies, a lateral hiring spree is also contributing to the evolving London competition landscape, Nicole notes.
“The geopolitics have shifted a little, making the UK much more in the fore because of Brexit,” she says. “That’s made the UK a particular focus for many global investors because if a global deal is going to be scuppered as a result of a [Competition and Markets Authority] investigation, you very much want to make sure that you’ve got the best team on your side for the CMA angle as well as other major agencies like the FTC/DOJ and Commission.”
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