Strati Sakellariou-Witt is a partner in the White & Case global antitrust practice, based in Brussels. Her practice focuses on EU competition law across a number of sectors including energy, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, tech and transport. She has extensive experience in advising clients on antitrust and merger control aspects of complex cross-border M&A transactions and joint ventures and has represented clients in a number of high profile merger cases. She regularly represents clients in antitrust proceedings before the European Commission and antitrust authorities worldwide in cartel, abuse of dominance and procedural investigations and has extensive experience in litigating before the EU Courts. Strati was named "Competition and Antitrust Lawyer of the Year" in Europe in 2021 and 2019 by Euromoney, “Rising Star” in Europe by Law.com in 2021, and "Rising Star" for Competition/Antitrust by Law 360 in 2020. She is also recognised as a leading competition lawyer by Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal.
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The adopted FSR Implementing Regulation contains important changes compared to the draft published in February 2023. The focus of the FSR filings for M&A deals and public tenders in the EU will be on companies’ foreign financial contributions ("FFCs") received from non-EU countries (or (...)
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The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation took effect on 12 July 2023 to much fanfare. We take a look at the top five things PE funds need to know when considering acquisitions with a European footprint. The Foreign Subsidies Regulation ("FSR") is the European Commission’s attempt to level the (...)
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The European Commission ("Commission") has adopted a package of revised legal texts aimed at simplifying the EU merger review process. The package expands the categories of cases that may be eligible for the simplified procedure, and streamlines the review of simplified cases. It also reduces (...)
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The UK antitrust authority, the CMA, has recently published a guide for employers on how to avoid breaching UK antitrust law in labour markets. This publication signals the UK’s intent to ratchet up antitrust scrutiny of labour markets – a trend that is gathering momentum across the world, in (...)
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Advocate General Juliane Kokott has proposed that the EU Court of Justice should find that competition authorities have the power to apply Article 102 TFEU to corporate transactions that are not reportable, and test under that provision whether the transaction as such constitutes an abuse of a (...)
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On 16 June 2022, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Competition announced its decision to block National Gas and Industrialization Company from acquiring a majority stake in Best Gas Carrier on the basis of vertical competition concerns. This is the first vertical merger prohibited by the (...)
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On 1 March 2022, the European Commission ("EC") published for consultation two draft revised horizontal block exemption regulations ("HBERs") on research & development ("R&D") and specialisation agreements, as well as draft revised horizontal cooperation guidelines ("Horizontal (...)
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On 23 February 2022, the EU’s General Court (GC) dismissed a €1.7 billion claim for damages brought by United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) against the European Commission (EC). UPS sought compensation for the losses resulting from the EC’s decision to block UPS’ merger with TNT NV (TNT). The GC, (...)
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As part of its review of the EU antitrust rules governing vertical agreements, the European Commission (EC) has published for consultation a draft new section of its Vertical Guidelines, which contains proposed guidance on information exchange in "dual distribution" relationships. Reacting to (...)
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This article has been nominated for the 2023 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Competition (the “GAC”) has been ramping up its merger control activities and recently—at least (...)
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No-poach agreements on the European Commission dawn raid radar* In a speech on 22 October 2021, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager revealed that the European Commission was planning a series of dawn raids for the months to come. She highlighted that the European Commission is not (...)
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The Government of Kuwait has recently amended its competition law to include for the first time a pre-merger notification regime based on turnover thresholds. Kuwait’s Competition Protection Agency has started to apply the new thresholds and has already launched inquiries into transactions (...)
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On 6 May 2021, the European Commission ("Commission") published a staff working document ("SWD") on its evaluation of the horizontal block exemption regulations on research & development and specialisation agreements ("H-BERs") and the horizontal guidelines. The SWD is accompanied by an (...)
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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. The CMA Remicade decision: discount schemes and abuse of dominance – effects matter!* Summary On 14 March 2019, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (...)
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This article has been nominated for the 2018 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 6 September 2017, the Court of Justice of the European Union ("CJEU" or "Court") essentially held in Intel that the European Commission ("Commission") (...)
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This article is the winner of the business category, anticompetitive practices section of the 2012 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. In an Opinion delivered on 10 February 2011, Advocate General (‘AG’) Sharpston of the European Court of (...)
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The "reasonably-efficient operator test" is a general test used for pricing strategies of dominant firms by the European Commission. Contributions of this "Trends" present this test in various areas of competition law. The importance of this test has recently been underlined by the Court of (...)
