Bertrand is a counsel in our antitrust, competition and trade group. He shares his time between our Berlin, Germany and Silicon Valley, California offices. A dual-qualified competition lawyer (France and Germany), he advises on EU, German, French and multi-jurisdictional merger control and antitrust. He specialises in merger control, abuse-of-dominance and distribution strategies under European, German and French competition law. Bertrand is known for his significant experience in the tech, ad tech, media & advertising, new media, e-commerce, retail and pharmaceutical sectors. His clients range from US tech giants to European leaders in their respective fields, for example in media, e-commerce and pharma. Recent clients include the television channels of the CME Group (PPF), Meta Platforms (Facebook), Zalando, Zentiva, Boehringer Ingelheim, Cinven and Advent. Bertrand has been recognised as a ’Future Leader’ by clients and peers every year since the very first 2017 edition of ’Who’s Who Legal - Competition: Future Leaders’ (Who’s Who Legal/Global Competition Review). He is both a qualified lawyer and a business school graduate (Grande Ecole, MSc in Management). Bertrand speaks English, German and a bit of Portuguese in addition to his native French. Bertrand is also a representative of Halo, Freshfields’ LGBTQ+ network.
2485
On 9 June 2009, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) cleared the creation of a marketing joint venture between two dairy companies, Humana Milchindustrie GmbH (Humana) and Nordmilch AG (Nordmilch), that will pool sales of their respective dairy products. 1. Confirmation of settled market definition (...)
2647
On 2 July 2009, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) published an interim report on the inquiry it launched in May 2008 on the fuel sector in Germany. The report, published 6 months after the initially planned date, presents the first results of a very thorough market investigation which had already (...)
1616
Background Against the background of increasing global financial turmoil, three major concentrations involving six large German banks (as well as the largest German insurance company) were submitted to the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt - FCO) for clearance between November (...)
4018
In over 35 years of its existence, the German merger control regime has gained a strong reputation all over the world due to its influential role in post-war Europe, high rate of enforcement and the important place held by the competition authority in charge of its enforcement, the (...)
5353
In a judgment of 11 November 2008, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) (Federal Court) upheld a previous decision of the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (Higher Regional Court) which had itself confirmed a decision of the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) blocking E.ON’s plan to (...)
3269
With its judgment of 11 November 2008, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) (Federal Court) has opened a new chapter in the never ending judicial saga relating to the German edition of the scientific magazine National Geographic, which has already found itself at the centre (...)
4093
In over 35 years of its existence, the German merger control regime has gained a strong reputation all over the world due to its influential role in post-war Europe, high rate of enforcement and the important place held by the competition authority in charge of its enforcement, the (...)
1919
On 30 June 2008, the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) cleared a merger between two German food discount retailers, subject to divestiture conditions . A high-profile case On 28 December 2007, the German retail giants EDEKA Zentrale AG & Co. KG (EDEKA) and Tengelmann (...)
2067
On 13 May 2008, the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) issued a communication in which it clarified the way it intends to deal with post-closing filings of notifiable concentrations. The FCO clearly states that, in the future, it will not deal with such late notifications within its normal (...)
4853
On 27 February 2008 the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) prohibited the acquisition by A-TEC Industries AG (A-TEC), a Vienna-based international industrial group, of 13.75 % of the shares in Norddeutsche Affinerie AG (NA), a publicly listed German manufacturer and recycler of copper. Since (...)
6385
The German parliament voted on a reform to the Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC) which is inter alia aimed at improving the fight against price abuses by companies in the energy and food trade sectors. Both reforms are unrelated to each other even though both were intensively (...)
8214
A recent blocking decision against a merger between RWE and SaarFerngas, a Court decision upholding a blocking decision against E.ON (See Dr. Frank Röhling, Bertrand Guerin, The Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court upholds a Bundeskartellamt decision blocking an energy merger (E.ON/ Stadtwerke (...)
9050
A recent blocking decision against a merger between RWE and SaarFerngas (See Dr. Frank Röhling, Bertrand Guerin, The German Federal Cartel Office prohibits further merger of a dominant player in the electricity and gas sector (RWE/SaarFerngas), e-Competitions, July 2007-I, a Court decision (...)
3381
Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt), 31 May 2007, Gesellschaft für Glasrecycling und Abfallvermeidung mbH a. o., Case n° B 4 - 37203 - Kc - 1006/06 German used packaging recycling systems are currently under the scrutiny of the competition authorities. One week after the Court of First (...)
1965
This article summarizes important recent developments in resale price maintenance in Germany. The investigation of this practice has been a priority of the Bundeskartellamt, the German competition authority. In 2009, a series of severe fines (in particular the Ciba Vision decision) were imposed (...)
4554
The purpose of this article is to highlight the main rules of German merger control in light of the recent decisional practice of the Federal Cartel Office and the case-law of the German courts. Firstly, we will show that German merger control law is applied very widely in practice (for example (...)
5148
The German parliament has voted in favour of a reform to the Act against Restraints of Competition which is inter alia aimed at improving the fight against pricing abuses by companies in the energy and food trade sectors. As regards the energy sector, the reform introduces a new section 29 of (...)
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