Mark Jones is a partner at Jones Day based in the firm’s London office. He has over 25 years of experience advising on complex and high-profile competition/antitrust issues. He has obtained competition clearances for M&A transactions and joint ventures and has represented clients in cartel, monopoly, and market investigations. Mark advises on UK, EU, and multijurisdictional matters. Sectors in which he has particular experience include financial institutions, technology, pharma, energy and infrastructure, entertainment and media, and retail and consumer. Mark has been described in legal directories as an "excellent technician and tactician" and a "fantastic competition lawyer." Mark also regularly advises on foreign direct investment regimes, the economic regulation of utilities, and subsidy control rules. Mark’s experience includes a secondment to the Office of Fair Trading, the predecessor to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Prior to joining Jones Day in 2022, Mark’s recent cases include: CMA merger clearance for Kustomer, Inc. of its acquisition by Facebook; CMA and European Commission merger clearance for ASM Global, a joint venture between AEG and SMG, to establish a leading worldwide venue management and services company; representing OFGEM, the UK energy regulator, in its successful defense against appeals before the CMA by nine energy companies relating to its RIIO-2 price control decisions for the United Kingdom’s electricity and gas transmission and gas distribution networks; successfully defending a generics pharmaceutical company in a cartel investigation by the CMA in relation to the supply of two generic pharmaceutical products in the United Kingdom; and advising a major UK retail bank on the State aid aspects of the UK government’s COVID-related support loan schemes.
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In Short The Development: The Court of Justice of the European Union ("ECJ") annulled a General Court ("GC") ruling that had adopted a high standard of proof for the European Commission ("EC") to block transactions in concentrated markets in which neither the parties to the deal nor other (...)
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The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority ("CMA") will fine Leicester City Football Club ("LCFC") up to £880k after it admitted to an anticompetitive arrangement with sports clothing retailer JD Sports, which reported the arrangement under the CMA’s leniency policy. Both LCFC and JD Sports (...)
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In Short The Development: The new Belgian foreign direct investment screening law ("FDI Regime") imposes preclosing filing requirements on non-EU investments into various industry sectors in Belgium, including energy, electronic communication, tech, and defense. The Background: Belgium (...)
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In Short The Background: Luxembourg has introduced a new foreign direct investment regime with a suspensory mandatory notification requirement in relation to investments in a broad range of sectors. The Result: Investors from outside the European Economic Area ("EEA") will be required to (...)
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In Short The Development: On 1 June 2023, the Security Screening of Investment, Mergers and Acquisitions Act (Wet Veiligheidstoets investeringen, fusies en overnames) ("the FDI Act") entered into force, introducing a mandatory notification requirement relating to investments in target (...)
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In Short The Development: The Court of Justice of the European Union ("ECJ") held that national competition authorities ("NCA") may investigate and block an M&A transaction that violates Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to the extent it is not reportable (...)
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The UK’s much publicised National Security and Investment Bill has now been granted Royal Assent – passing into law an Act which will significantly affect the way investments in the UK can be reviewed by the Government where they raise national security considerations. The Act introduces a (...)
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A new National Security and Investment Bill laid before the UK Parliament this week will, on enactment, significantly affect the way investments in the UK can be reviewed by the UK Government where they raise national security considerations. The new legislation replaces stop-gap provisions (...)
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The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has recently published draft guidance on how its role, powers, and processes will operate once the transition period provided for by the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement comes to an end, on 31 December 2020. The CMA’s guidance focuses on its role in (...)
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The first State aid measures authorized by the European Commission (Commission) following the COVID-19 outbreak were aimed at helping companies to cover their immediate liquidity needs, mainly through bank loans guaranteed by EU Member States. The significant losses incurred by companies as (...)
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Competition/antitrust laws generally require rival firms to operate on the market independently of each other and tolerate cooperation between competitors only in limited circumstances where any resulting loss of competition is clearly offset by consumer benefits. But as businesses scramble to (...)
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The UK Competition and Markets Authority ("CMA") recently issued its Annual Plan for 2020/2021, which aims to give clarity to the CMA’s objectives for the next year. The report acknowledges that its publication comes out at a time of massive social and economic turmoil caused by the COVID-19 (...)
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The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the European economy with brute force. Many businesses are facing drastic declines in revenues and are in urgent need of liquidity. Some have imposed temporary lay-offs or even face insolvency. The European Commission and most EU member states as well as the UK, (...)
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Norwegian salmon farmer Marine Harvest has been unsuccessful in its appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) regarding substantial and separate fines imposed on it by the European Commission for both failing to notify a merger and for ’jumping the gun’ in implementing the (...)
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On 27 June 2019, the European Commission (Commission) announced it had fined Japanese camera and printer manufacturer, Canon, €28m for partially implementing its 2016 acquisition of Toshiba Medical Systems prior to the transaction being notified to the Commission and, as a result, before it (...)
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This article has been nominated for the 2020 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 26 June 2019, the European Commission announced that it has opened a formal investigation to determine whether US chipmaker, Broadcom, is abusing its (...)
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Substantial reform of EU merger control on the cards* On 9 July 2014, the European Commission published a White Paper setting out proposals to amend the EU merger control system. The proposed reform of the system is the most significant in the last 10 years and could have an impact on many (...)
