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Alastair Chapman

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (London)

Global Head - Antitrust, Competition and Trade GroupGlobal Antitrust Chair

Alastair is the global head of our antitrust, competition and trade group. Based in London, Alastair also spends time working in Brussels and has previously worked in Washington DC. He advises on all aspects of EU and UK competition law, and related commercial strategy. He has extensive experience representing clients before EU and national regulators and courts, and regularly leads complex cross-border transactions and investigations. Alastair has significant expertise working closely with clients across a broad range of sectors including consumer products and retail, financial services, private equity, food service, and technology media and telecoms. He is equally at home counselling in-house lawyers and executives, and coordinating large multi-national teams. His commercial approach to what can be a technical area of law means that he provides clear and pragmatic advice, and is conscious that the law is often only one part of the solution. A frequent speaker at international conferences, Alastair is also co-author of the horizontal arrangements chapter of Bellamy and Child: European Union Law of Competition.

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Linked authors

James Aitken

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (London)

United Kingdom 8 contributions 19136 visits

David Aitman

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (London)

United Kingdom 1 contribution 718 visits

Oyebola Ajayi

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (London)

United Kingdom 2 contributions 3049 visits

Ramya Arnold

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (London)

United Kingdom 1 contribution 136 visits

Fabrizio Arossa

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (Rome)

Italy 1 contribution 67 visits

1003 | Events

29 Sep 2020 Webinar EU New Competition Tool : A paradigm shift in competition rules for the digital economy and beyond ? See documents

Articles

1702 Bulletin

Alastair Chapman, Sarah Jensen, Theodore Souris The UK Competition Authority updates its Merger Assessment Guidelines

18 March 2021 386

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has updated its guidelines on the way it assesses mergers to take account of the significant economic changes that have taken place since it published its previous guidance in 2010. The CMA is taking an increasingly interventionist approach to (...)

Amaryllis Müller, Alastair Chapman, Sarah Jensen The EU Commission announces that, amid the current COVID-19 crisis, it stands ready to deal with cases where firms can show very compelling reasons to proceed with a merger notification without delay

7 April 2020 314

Although many competition authorities are making considerable efforts to ensure “business as usual” during the COVID-19 crisis, the pandemic is inevitably having a material impact on merger control reviews around the globe. In addition to the obvious timing implications, deals are now being, (...)

Sarah Jensen, Alastair Chapman, Sascha Schubert The EU Commission imposes a €28M fine on an imaging and optical products company for gun jumping (Canon / Toshiba)

27 June 2019 28

The Commission’s decision on 27 June 2019 to impose a €28 million fine on Canon for breaching EU notification and standstill obligations is the latest in a series of cases showing the Commission’s determination to take action against procedural infringements of EU merger control. It follows a (...)

Alastair Chapman, Sascha Schubert, Thomas McGrath, Thomas Wessely The EU Court of Justice clarifies that the suspension obligation only applies to actions of the merging parties which contribute to the change in control of the target undertaking (EY / KPMG)

31 May 2018 84

On 31 May 2018, the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ) gave judgment in the EY / KPMG case on whether the EU suspension obligation was violated when KPMG’s Danish unit terminated a material contract prior to receiving competition clearance for its merger with Ernst & Young (EY). The ECJ (...)

Sascha Schubert, Alastair Chapman The EU Commission fines a telecommunications company for gun jumping (Altice / PT Portugal)

24 April 2018 70

European Commission decision provides guidance on how merging parties can mitigate the risk of ’gun jumping’ Following on from our update on this topic in April, the European Commission (Commission) has published the non-confidential version of its decision to fine multinational cable and (...)

Alastair Chapman, Sascha Schubert, Thomas McGrath, Sneha Ramakrishnan The EU Commission fines a multinational cable and telecommunications company €124.5M for implementing its acquisition before obtaining approval (Altice / PT Portugal)

24 April 2018 102

The European Commission (Commission) announced today its decision to fine multinational cable and telecoms company Altice €124.5 million for breaching the EU Merger Regulation by implementing its 2015 acquisition of a telecommunications operator, PT Portugal, before notification to, or (...)

Alastair Chapman, Alison Jones, David Aitman Financial services and competition law: An overview of EU and national case law

24 July 2014 718

1. Financial crisis We are writing this foreword during a period of virtually unprecedented economic disarray. At the time of drafting, a deal has just been hammered out to protect Greece from default on its sovereign debt, but uncertainty still remains as to whether other Eurozone countries (...)