Renato Antonini is a partner with Steptoe & Johnson, based in Brussels, he has been involved in many of the largest trade defense investigations in the EU and other jurisdictions during his 20 years of practice focused on the EU and WTO trade laws. Renato has extensive experience in EU and Italian customs and export control laws ; he is particularly active on export control mandates for manufacturers of dual-use goods. He also advises clients in EU and Italian competition law, particularly in cartels, state aid, and abuse of dominance issues. Renato has an in-depth knowledge of the relevant laws and practice combined with a great understanding of clients’ commercial interests. Clients Renato has represented include governments as well as large corporations in steel, chemical, energy, financial, and other industries. He has assisted several clients in many EU and BRIC trade defense investigations, such as antidumping, antisubsidy, and anticircumvention investigations, as well as a full range of other trade matters including advising on trade remedy investigations and challenging tariffs. He has successfully defended clients’ interests before governments and courts. Renato recently successfully assisted Changshu City Standard Parts Factory and Ningbo Jinding Fastener in an appeal before the Court of Justice of the European Union against the antidumping duties imposed by the EU on imports of certain fasteners originating in China (C-376/15). Renato is a regular speaker at seminars and conferences and has been invited by governments to hold training courses on export controls and trade defense. He is also a member of the International Academy of Customs Law.
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On 19 May 2021, the General Court (“GC”) annulled two decisions of the European Commission, following Ryanair’s challenges of State aid granted to respectively TAP (Portugal’s national airline) and KLM (subsidiary of the Air France-KLM holding company). In June and July 2020, TAP and KLM (...)
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In Short The Situation : The European Commission ("Commission") has faced significant pressure from stakeholders to quickly address growing concerns over the distortive effects of foreign subsidies and to ensure a level playing field in the EU. The Result : As anticipated in our recent (...)
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Since the onset of the coronavirus outbreak, the European Commission has adopted a significant number of State aid measures under Article 107(2)b, Article 107(3)b and under the Temporary Framework. The most recent measures adopted to support the economy and companies affected by coronavirus (...)
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On 5 March 2021, the Commission announced the Fit for Future Platform’s selection of 15 initiatives aimed at simplifying EU law. Launched in May 2020, the Platform gathers a high-level expert group to assist the Commission with simplifying existing EU laws and reducing administrative burdens (...)
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On 16 November 2020, Executive VP and Competition Commissioner Vestager spoke at the State Aid High Level Forum of the Member States, focusing on new State aid rules to respond to the current economic crisis caused by the pandemic. In addition to the Temporary Framework for State Aid, which (...)
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On 13 October 2020, the European Commission decided to prolong and extend the scope of the State Aid Temporary Framework as follows : Extension of Temporary Framework : All sections of the Temporary Framework are prolonged for six months until 30 June 2021, except the section that enables (...)
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On May 20, 2020, the German Federal government adopted the 15th amendment to the Foreign Trade and Payments Ordinance (AWV). The changes to the AWV will be effective shortly, after publication in the Federal Gazette. Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the amendment expands the scope of (...)
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In Short The Situation : The French government issued on December 31, 2019, new rules substantially revising the French Foreign Direct Investments ("FDI") regulation. These new provisions mostly implement the recent PACTE law and the new EU FDI regulation which set up an EU screening (...)
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On 21 March 2019, Regulation (EU) 2019/452 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 March 2019 establishing a framework for the screening of foreign direct investments into the Union (“FDI Regulation”) was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. The FDI Regulation (...)
