Shearman & Sterling (London)

Matthew Readings

Shearman & Sterling (London)
Partner

Matthew Readings is Global Antitrust Practice Group Leader and Head of the London and Brussels Offices for Shearman & Sterling. He splits his time between London and Brussels and focuses on EU and UK competition law, including transactional and behavioral/contentious work. Matthew advises a broad range of clients on strategic merger clearance issues, represents clients before the European Commission and the CMA, oversees multi-jurisdictional merger clearance processes in countries throughout the world and has handled complex European Commission and CMA cases including Phase II investigations and remedy cases. He also advises on cartel investigations by the European Commission appeals to the European Courts (where he appears as an advocate) and UK cartel investigations and market studies/investigations by the CMA and sector regulators such as the FCA. He is experienced in private enforcement of antitrust rights in the UK courts. Matthew is recommended in the principal legal directories and teaches EU competition law at Oxford University.

Distinctions

Auteurs associés

Shearman & Sterling (Brussels)
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Articles

6080 Bulletin

Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, Matthew Readings, James Webber, Jonathan Cheng, Sylvain Petit, Mark Steenson The EU Parliament and Council see the entry into force of their new Foreign Subsidies Regulation which protects the distortion of competition within the internal market

129

The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) entered into force on 12 January 2023. It represents a massive expansion in the European Commission’s power to investigate inward investment to the EU. This new regulation—the first of its kind in the world—attempts to assert control over subsidies granted (...)

Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, James Webber, Matthew Readings, Ruba Noorali The EU General Court rejects an appeal against a €28M fine imposed by the Commission for breach of EU gun jumping rules (Canon)

505

On 18 May 2022the European General Court rejected Canon’s appeal against a €28 million fine imposed by the European Commission in 2019 for its breach of EU gun-jumping rules, just a few months after a similar judgment therefore vindicating the Commission’s aggressive stance on such breaches. (...)

James Webber, Matthew Readings, Ben Gris, Simon Thexton The UK Government publishes the outcome of a consultation on reforming competition and consumer policy which is expand the Competition Authority’s merger control powers

11

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is expected to be granted wider jurisdictional powers for merger control enforcement in legislative proposals mentioned in today’s Queen’s Speech. The powers derive from the outcome of a consultation on reforming competition and consumer policy (...)

Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, Matthew Readings, James Webber, Ruba Noorali The EU General Court overturns the Commission’s decision to fine a semiconductor chip manufacturer €1.06 billion for abusing its dominant position (Intel)

339

On 26 January 2022 the General Court (GC) issued its latest judgment in the Intel case, faulting fundamental aspects of the Commission’s original decision almost 13 years prior. The judgment’s findings are promising for pending cases appealing similar issues, including the application of the “as (...)

Matthew Readings, James Webber, Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, Jonathan Swil, James Matthews The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal certifies a well-publicized class action litigation against a financial services company (Merricks / Mastercard)

320

The U.K. Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) last week certified the well-publicized Mastercard class action litigation. In our previous article (See Chris Collins, Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, Jonathan Swil, Ozlem Fidanboylu, The UK Supreme Court gives guidance on collective proceedings in (...)

James Webber, Sara Ashall, Matthew Readings, Edward Rarity, Elvira Aliende Rodriguez The UK Government announces long-awaited and extensive reforms to the foreign investment regime

188

On 11 November 2020, the U.K. Government announced long-awaited and extensive reforms to the U.K. foreign investment regime. The reforms proposed are more significant than anticipated and include a mandatory notification regime alongside broader “call-in” powers for the Secretary of State. The (...)

Matthew Readings, James Webber, Sara Ashall The UK Competition Authority publishes a series of regulatory initiatives aimed at online platforms focused on digital advertising and signals a new path for UK clampdown on Big Tech due to the current inadequate competition law toolkit

487

On 1 July 2020, the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a statement outlining a series of regulatory initiatives aimed at Google and Facebook, focussed on digital advertising. This follows the release of the CMA’s report on digital advertising and online platforms the same (...)

Matthew Readings, James Webber, Sara Ashall, Edward Rarity The UK Competition Authority publishes a statement outlining a series of regulatory initiatives aimed at tech giants (Google / Facebook)

95

On 1 July 2020, the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a statement outlining a series of regulatory initiatives aimed at Google and Facebook, focused on digital advertising. This follows the release of the CMA’s report on digital advertising and online platforms the same day. (...)

James Matthews, Matthew Readings, Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, James Webber, Ruba Noorali, Jonathan Swil The UK Supreme Court gives an important judgment in the litigation regarding two payment platform providers’ interchange fees (Sainsbury’s / Visa / Mastercard)

59

Introduction The U.K. Supreme Court has handed victory to a group of British retailers (the “respondents”) in a long-running dispute with Mastercard and Visa Europe (the “appellants”) finding that the default “multilateral interchange fees” (MIFs) set by Mastercard and Visa and charged by (...)

Sara Ashall, Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, Matthew Readings, James Webber The EU General Court annuls the Commission’s decision prohibiting a merger between two telecommunication companies (Telefónica UK / Hutchison 3G UK)

69

Under the leadership of Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission has taken an increasing interventionist stand across all areas of antitrust enforcement, in particular in merger control. The EU’s General Court dealt that aggressive agenda a massive blow by annulling the first of her many (...)

James Webber, Ruba Noorali, Sara Ashall, Matthew Readings, Elvira Aliende Rodriguez The EU Commission announces a major relaxation of the State aid rules via a new Temporary Framework during the COVID-19 outbreak

462

How will European Competition Enforcers Respond ? The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented challenge to the economy and competition enforcement is no exception. Authorities at EU and national level may need to consider novel solutions to respond to rapidly evolving problems and to (...)

Elvira Aliende Rodriguez, Ruba Noorali, Matthew Readings The EU General Court reaffirms the Commission’s duty to provide sufficient reasons when explaining fine calculations in cartel cases (HSBC)

564

This article has been nominated for the 2020 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 24 September 2019, the EU General Court (GC) handed down its judgment in HSBC v. Commission. Consistent with recent precedent, the GC reaffirmed the European (...)

Sara Ashall, James Webber, Matthew Readings The EU Commission imposes a fine of €28 million for “gun-jumping” on a Japanese manufacturer of imaging and optical products (Canon / Toshiba)

1224

This article has been nominated for the 2020 Antitrust Writing Awards. Click here to learn more about the Antitrust Writing Awards. On 27 June 2019 the European Commission imposed a fine of €28 million on the Japanese imaging and optical products manufacturer Canon for “gun-jumping” by using a (...)

Geert Goeteyn, James Webber, Matthew Readings, Ruba Noorali The EU Commission considers potential harm to innovation as part of its merger assessments, particularly in R&D driven sectors such as pharmaceuticals and technology (Bayer / Monsanto)

894

The European Commission has routinely considered potential harm to innovation as part of its merger assessments, particularly in R&D driven sectors such as pharmaceuticals and technology. In recent years, however, the Commission’s traditional innovation concerns have developed into broader, (...)

Geert Goeteyn, James Webber, Matthew Readings The EU Commission sends a statement of objections to a company to investigate whether a merger was implemented before the Commission’s clearance (Altice / PT Portugal)

553

When a transaction meets the thresholds of the EU Merger Regulation, companies must notify and obtain clearance from the European Commission before implementing the transaction. This means that until clearance is obtained, companies should continue to operate independently (including (...)

494 Revue

Alexander Italianer, Anne Perrot, Howard Shelanski, Matthew Readings Restructuration des entreprises en période de crise : Quel rôle pour le contrôle des concentrations ? (New Frontiers of Antitrust, Paris, 21 février 2014)

494

La dernière table-ronde de la conférence “Demain la concurrence” du 21 février 2014 à Paris, était dédiée à la "Restructuration des entreprises en période de crise : Quel rôle pour le contrôle des concentations ?". L’objectif de cette table ronde est d’analyser dans quelle mesure le contexte économique (...)

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