Fishing expeditions, forensic imaging and fines: important developments relating to European Commission dawn raids *

European Union - December 3 2012
During the course of 2012 there have been various developments at the EU level in relation to the unannounced inspections or "dawn raids" regularly conducted by the Commission in competition law cases.

Co-authors: Molly Herron, Kyriakos Fountoukakos, Kim Dietzel.

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Antitrust proceedings and the application of legal privilege under English law: Competition Appeal Tribunal rules that the OFT's Dairy investigation was sufficiently "adversarial" for litigation privilege to apply, but areas of uncertainty remain *

United Kingdom - April 2 2012
In its ruling of 20 March 2012, made in the context of Tesco's appeal of the Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) Dairy cartel infringement decision, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) rejected the OFT's request for disclosure of notes of third party witness interviews which had been carried out by Tesco's lawyers during the OFT's investigation.

Co-authors: Molly Herron, Kim Dietzel, Stephen Wisking.

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Proposals for reform of UK competition regime published *

United Kingdom - March 15 2012
The Government has today published its proposals for reform of the UK competition regime, following a detailed consultation exercise carried out last year in which comments were invited on a number of options for each of the different strands of competition law.

Co-authors: James Quinney, Dorothy Livingston, Stephen Wisking, Kristien Geeurickx.

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"First come first served": the European Commission's priority rule in Seagate/Samsung and Western Digital/Hitachi and practical implications *

European Union - February 20 2012
Two recent merger decisions by the European Commission in the hard disk drive sector will be of interest to Japanese companies planning M&A deals for a number of reasons.

Co-authors: Kyriakos Fountoukakos, Joel Rheuben, Kristien Geeurickx, James Robinson.

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Private equity deals and EU merger control *

European Union - February 2 2012
A large number of private equity deals are caught by the EU merger control rules and require filings to the European Commission in Brussels.

Co-authors: James Quinney, James MacArthur, Kyriakos Fountoukakos, Kristen Roberts, Gavin Davies.

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