Falk Schoening is a partner Hogan Lovells in Brussels. He advises clients on all aspects of EU and German antitrust law, EU State Aid, foreign investment control, and export control. He focuses his practice on international cases which require coordination between different legal systems or representation vis-à-vis several regulators. Falk regularly advises clients on structuring transactions, joint ventures or divestitures, and represents them in merger control and foreign investment control proceedings to ensure M&A transactions are successfully closed. He has extensive experience handling complex global mergers in front of the European Commission, the German Federal Cartel Office, and coordinating filings in jurisdictions globally. Falk has devised the strategy in multiple successful high-profile deals and procurements in the TMT, aerospace and defense, and chemicals sectors. He is praised by clients as solution-oriented, pragmatic and reliable. Falk has substantial experience in the field of media and technology, where he deals with questions relating to data and competition law, the EU Digital Single Market strategy, artificial intelligence, blockchain and robots. In addition, as a leader of Hogan Lovells’ European aerospace and defense group, he regularly advises on competition law, regulatory and procurement issues faced by airlines, defense contractors and UAV operators in Germany and Europe. Thanks to his first-hand experience of policymaking in Brussels and Berlin, Falk can also assist clients effectively in policy advocacy projects both in Germany and at EU level.
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After feverishly frequent updates on FDI screening in Germany over the past few years, things seemed to have calmed down recently. Now the German government is back with a bunch of news: On the enforcement front, the recent prohibition regarding satellite communications provider KLEO Connect (...)
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Today marks the start of the EU’s Foreign Subsidies Regulation regime. From this date, the European Commission, as the enforcer of the FSR, will have the power to launch investigations to tackle distortions caused by foreign subsidies in the internal market. M&A agreements signed from this (...)
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The European Commission has adopted guidelines addressing the application of EU competition law to the "solo self-employed". The guidelines clarify situations in which certain self-employed individuals may work collectively to seek improvements in working conditions without falling foul of (...)
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In its Second Annual Report on the screening of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Union, the EU Commission takes stock of the FDI screening rules at both EU and Member State level. Today, 25 out of 27 Member States either have a screening mechanism in place or are in the process of (...)
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For the first time ever, the EU Commission has issued a decision on the relationship between EU merger control law and national FDI screening rules. It found that the Hungarian Government’s veto of Vienna Insurance Group’s planned acquisition of the Hungarian subsidiaries of Dutch insurer (...)
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The European Commission has published a new draft guidance with regard to exchange of information related to dual distribution. This draft guidance provides valuable dos and don’ts for companies concerning the information exchange in a dual distribution scenario. Any company dealing with dual (...)
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Regulators are becoming increasingly active in imposing measures on deals or prohibiting them altogether under FDI rules – with prohibitions happening in the EU’s largest economies Germany, France, and Italy in the past months. Against this backdrop, Germany is moving forward on its plans for (...)
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Foreign investment control has become a key factor in M&A deals and 2020 was a particularly eventful year. A large number of countries have recently introduced foreign investment control regimes (or tightened their existing rules) and made use of them with, for example, prohibitions (...)
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On 14 January, the German Parliament passed far-reaching amendments of German antitrust law, the Act against Restraints of Competition (ARC), which also affect merger control. The amendment, also known as the "German Competition Digitalization Act", focuses especially on the reform of (...)
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Foreign investment control has become a key factor in M&A deals and 2020 has been an eventful year. A large number of economies have introduced foreign investment control regimes or tightened their existing rules. Now it appears that it is time to make use of them: this week Germany has (...)
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The long-awaited application of the European Union (EU) Regulation on a framework for the screening of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the EU started, 11 October 2020. It is still early days to anticipate how the EU rules will be implemented in practice by the member states and the European (...)
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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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The disruption linked to COVID-19 already affects the global economy significantly, including M&A transactions in Europe and across the globe. On the regulatory side, many deals face challenges caused by national authorities’ reduced capacities, while some authorities struggle to uphold (...)
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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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The current COVID-19 pandemic is posing unprecedented challenges on our public health systems and communities. It is also heavily impacting economic activity, including for companies in the midst of M&A or joint venture transactions. Deals that are subject to merger control review in the (...)
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Following the European Commission’s prohibition of the Alstom-Siemens transaction, the French and German governments published a manifesto calling for a reform of current EU merger rules to shape a "European industrial policy fit for the 21st Century." This manifesto appears to be directly (...)
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I. Introduction On 6 October, the German Federal Cartel Office (’FCO’) launched its new series of papers on ’Competition and Consumer Protection in the Digital Economy’. The first paper deals with ’Big Data and Competition’. The same day, a ’real-life example’ of competition enforcement in (...)
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On 9 June 2017, the 9th amendment of the German Act Against Restraints of Competition (ARC) entered into effect introducing important amendments for companies to German competition law. The reform deals with two main issues: the implementation of the European Cartel Damages Actions Directive (...)
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Germany suggests ramping up regulation of digital platforms by establishing Digital Agency with robust antitrust mandate* Will Germany establish a “Digital Agency” to monitor compliance with competition law rules in digital markets? Will a German “Digital Antitrust Enforcer” become a role (...)
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European Commission’s e-commerce sector inquiry - increasing anti-trust heat* Online sales are not only attracting the attention of consumers and tech businesses, but also increased review by antitrust regulators. On 15 September 2016, the European Commission published a detailed 290 page (...)
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Blockchain is one of the breakthrough technologies of our times and has already started to penetrate into various industries across the globe. Given the growing recent interest in big data, algorithms as well as net neutrality, it is conceivable that blockchain technology might attract (...)
