Luc Gyselen

Mr. Gyselen is partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer (Brussels). His antitrust practice encompasses advice and representation before EU and national agencies on merger control, abusive conduct, cartels, other restrictive practices and state aids. In light of his previous government experience, his expertise is focused in areas where antitrust and regulatory issues are intertwined such as financial services and pharmaceuticals ; distribution practices involving manufacturers of fast moving consumer goods such as food ; and cartel work including leniency applications. Mr. Gyselen joined the firm in July 2004 after twenty years of public service at various EU institutions. He spent most of his time at the European Commission, where he was a member of the Legal Service in the early years of his career and later held several senior positions in the Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP). His career at the Commission was interrupted by a three year secondment to the European Court of Justice where he was a law clerk to the then Belgian judge. During his four years as special assistant to the Director-General in DG COMP (1990-1994), he oversaw the entire range of EU competition policy activities, including the introduction of EC merger control, and acted as liaison officer between DG COMP and the Commissioner in charge of competition policy and his personal staff. Between 1994 and 2004, he played a key role in many leading antitrust cases. In the area of abusive conduct, these included Coca Cola (rebates, exclusive dealing, category management) - a case which led him to write an comprehensive article on rebates that received high visibility in the business community. Mr. Gyselen was also case manager in a dozen cartel cases in the financial services, food and agricultural sectors. In the pharmaceutical area, he cleared a number of joint ventures on the basis of a reasoning that was later incorporated in the Commission’s guidelines on horizontal restraints.