Antitrust & Competition

We provide practical, business-focused counseling to help clients compete vigorously while minimizing the risk of costly investigations and litigation. Our team provides tailored advice and compliance programs that reflect the nuances of global competition laws and rapidly evolving regulation (e.g., technology regulation in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Asia-Pacific). We advise on the full spectrum of commercial activities, including pricing strategies, distribution and franchising models, and collaborations between competitors. We help clients identify and remediate potential issues and manage risk, including by performing proactive audits and risk assessments, and obtaining immunity for conduct through authorizations or notifications, where available. Our goal is to be a strategic partner to our clients, ensuring that counseling and compliance facilitate, rather than hinder, business growth.

When government agencies and regulators launch inquiries into abuse of dominance, coordinated practices, consumer law, or other conduct, companies need a team who understands the internal mechanics of the regulators. Our team features former government enforcers and experienced counsel with decades of experience representing clients before government agencies, and who have strong agency connections and a deep understanding of agency process and enforcement trends. Whether a matter involves a localized conduct inquiry or multiple probes around the globe of a digital platform, we provide a unified, cross-border response that protects our clients’ global operations and reputation.

While agencies have tremendous resources with which to prosecute antitrust claims, they sometimes focus on the wrong targets or are unfamiliar with the nuances of a relevant industry. That’s where we come in.

Ashurst Perkins Coie lawyers have significant experience advocating on issues of interest to our clients before agencies, including the European Commission, U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, DOJ, FTC, U.S. state attorneys general, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and other antitrust regulators across the globe. We help agencies understand the industries in which our clients operate, our clients' business models, the procompetitive effects of their conduct, and the harms to competition or consumers that may result from others' conduct.

Our antitrust litigation practice manages high-stakes antitrust disputes and collective actions across the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia-Pacific. We address the significant risks associated with multijurisdictional enforcement, including damages (treble in the United States), civil or criminal fines, and required changes to business operations. Our team of experienced litigators represents clients in cases against the government/regulators and private parties, including disputes between market participations, as well as class-action defense.

We coordinate cross-disciplinary and cross-border teams to manage the impact of litigation on a client's broader commercial interests, including relationships with customers, suppliers, and investors. Our lawyers have experience in a wide range of industries, including technology, healthcare, life sciences, and financial services, among many others.

In an era of unprecedented cross-border enforcement, Ashurst Perkins Coie is a trusted partner for high-stakes cartel defense, offering formidable criminal litigation capabilities across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Asia-Pacific.

Our team—featuring former enforcers, veteran white-collar specialists, and experienced economists—manages the full life cycle of civil and criminal cartel investigations. From responding urgently to multijurisdictional dawn raids and securing leniency to defending complex follow-on class actions and opt-out litigation, we protect your interests at every stage. We defend aggressive investigations into price-fixing, bid-rigging, and market allocation with commercial precision and work toward successful outcomes for clients. With a proven track record of mitigating massive fines and protecting executives across the technology, financial services, and energy sectors, we deliver strategies that safeguard our clients' global reputation and operational freedom.

The tension between IP rights and competition law is one of the most challenging areas for modern technology and life sciences companies. We represent market leaders in matters involving standard-essential patents (SEPs), fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) licensing and access commitments, and patent "thickets." Our team manages high-stakes disputes where patent enforcement is challenged as an antitrust violation, such as “reverse payment” pharmaceutical patent settlements or sham patent litigation. We provide the technical and legal depth required to advise on the antitrust implications of complex licensing programs and patent pools. We help clients navigate evolving theories of harm pursued by global competition regulators and private plaintiffs, whether to protect their innovations or gain access being anticompetitively withheld.

Our team gets the deal done. Timely, accurate, and incisive commercial advice is essential for successfully managing global transactions. We have a long track record of advising clients on complex international mergers across a wide variety of sectors. Our focus is on providing robust and pragmatic commercial advice on the key issues from the outset, to ensure that they are addressed effectively and efficiently. Clients benefit from integrated, practical advice from our team of lawyers and economists at all stages of the merger review process, including assessing filing obligations and substantive risk around the world, negotiating risk allocation in merger agreements, in-depth Second Request and Phase 2 investigations, negotiating merger remedies, and defending a merger challenge in litigation.

The importance of foreign direct investment (FDI), national security, foreign subsidies, and similar regimes to international M&A and investment transactions has dramatically increased in recent years with the expansion of existing and new regimes. We have broad experience in this increasingly complex area across a wide variety of sectors, assessing the sensitivities of the activities at stake, coordinating filings, and assisting our clients in negotiating commitments or conditions, whether in tandem with our merger control work or on a stand-alone basis, to ensure a smooth and efficient process for clients.

Our team advises technology companies on compliance with established and emerging technology regulations in Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Asia-Pacific. This includes the EU Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act, Data Act, AI Act, and other regulations in the EU digital regulatory framework, the U.K. Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumer Act, Australia’s proposed digital platform competition regime, Scams Prevention Framework and news bargaining legislation, and emerging digital regulatory regimes in the Asia-Pacific. We work with both regulated entities and third parties on issues raised by the simultaneous application of the multiple elements of these digital frameworks and existing competition and consumer laws.

Evaluating exposure risks

Our team assists clients in the complex field of consumer protection regulation and provides ongoing support through risk assessments and reviews of our clients' businesses, consumer terms, and commercial practices to evaluate and reduce their exposure to consumer law risks. As the law develops in areas such as unfair contract terms and unfair trading practices, unconscionable conduct, product recalls, and consumer warranties, we are at the forefront of professionally assisting clients, as well as contributing to the debate on law reform.

Compliance training

We work closely with clients to enhance compliance training to help ensure that each business meets the compliance standards to which they aspire. We also provide practical, incisive, and commercial advice on how best to avoid compliance risks, without compromising business objectives.

Investigations of a sector are an increasingly important tool for antitrust and sector regulators as they seek to understand markets that may be perceived as not working well for customers and consumers. We have represented clients in the technology sector, financial services, energy and infrastructure, and consumer and retail, among others, who have been the key targets of landmark market inquiries. Our team has in-depth knowledge to guide and support clients involved in such potentially industry-changing investigations. Our integrated team of experienced competition lawyers and economists offers multidisciplinary professionalism, mirroring the teams fielded by regulators, to deliver the best and most efficient outcomes for clients.

Experience in state aid and foreign subsidies cases

We have a wealth of experience working on the most complex state aid cases—both in an advisory role and in matters before the European Commission and national and EU courts. Our experience is drawn from a broad base which benefits our clients. We have acted for beneficiaries and providers of state aid, whether these are central government bodies or other parts of the state apparatus, as well as complainants and other third parties.

Advice on subsidies regime

Our practice covers all industries and areas of state aid, including transport, infrastructure, energy, and fiscal state aid.

The relatively new subsidies regime in the United Kingdom brings its own challenges. We advise both public and private clients in relation to the U.K. subsidies regime and represented one of the parties in the very first subsidies based judicial review proceedings in the United Kingdom. In doing so we draw on our experience of EU state aid law, as well as experience in other relevant areas including trade law and dispute resolution in the United Kingdom.

We are recognized as professionals in U.K. and EU public procurement, and we act for both procuring authorities (e.g., central, regional, and local government authorities, utilities, and other public bodies) and tenderers on many of the largest projects procured in the United Kingdom. We regularly advise on complex and high-profile award procedures. Our procurement lawyers have in-depth experience of designing and running complex procurements, advising on procurement options, structuring procurements, compliance with procurement law, and preparing tender responses and modifications to contracts, including risk mitigation strategies.

We work with clients across a range of industries including rail, roads, aviation, telecommunications, water, waste, energy, defense, real estate, construction, healthcare, IT, and consultancy services. We are known for our work in the infrastructure sector, particularly in relation to major PFI/PPI contracts.

We advise on sector-specific economic regulation across a range of regulated industries, including energy, telecommunications, and transport, drawing on deep experience in dealing with sector regulators and understanding the interaction between competition law and regulatory frameworks.

Our team of highly experienced international trade lawyers provide comprehensive advice to clients on all aspects of World Trade Organization (WTO) substantive and procedural law, including antidumping and countervailing duty measures; subsidies; customs valuation; import and export licensing and quotas; trade in services; IP rights; national and most-favored nation treatment; sanitary measures; technical barriers to trade; transparency and fair administration of trade measures, as well as relevant exceptions.

We are experienced in representing governments as complainants, respondents, and third parties in all stages of WTO dispute settlement, spanning from the identification and introduction of claims, preparation of written pleadings, representation in oral hearings, and the effective implementation of decisions.

Our team assists clients in identifying and pursuing their interests in the negotiation of new bilateral and regional trade agreements and advising on the application and impact of these provisions to their business. Our lawyers also represent parties in dispute settlements under various bilateral and regional free trade agreements.

Recent geopolitical tensions have resulted in a new wave of trade defense investigations and measures, with the economic security agenda becoming a major strategic focus in many jurisdictions, including the European Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This has significant implications for companies across the globe.

Working hand in hand with our dedicated team of U.S. trade defense lawyers, our team works with clients in navigating the complexities of trade defense mechanisms and has a track record in representing clients in antidumping, anti-subsidy, and safeguard proceedings and investigations before the European Commission, the U.K. Trade Remedies Authority, as well as the investigating authorities of various third countries.

Our experience spans across the full spectrum of investigations and reviews, including completing questionnaire responses, drafting of injury submissions, preparing for and attending on-the-spot verifications, and representing clients during hearings. We also advise on the aftermath of antidumping measures, for example, in interim reviews and anti-circumvention investigations.

Our clients benefit from our extensive institutional network and experience advising and representing clients across a wide range of industry sectors in trade defense matters. Our lawyers often present practical insights on trade defense law in various jurisdictions, for example at events organized by EU institutions and other associations, acknowledging their extensive sector-related experience. Our long-standing and reliable connections to the European Commission, especially the trade defense units at the Directorate-General for Trade, the U.K. Trade Remedies Authority, and investigating authorities in various other jurisdictions, place us at the forefront of the latest developments in EU, U.K., and third-country trade defense investigations.

Companies involved in the global trade of goods and services face increased administrative, regulatory, and compliance challenges as new requirements add to already complex measures, such as customs classification, valuation, and tariffs. The complexity is heightened in the European Union, where EU member states implement and enforce the regulations in a decentralized manner.

Our multijurisdictional team assists clients in understanding and implementing customs rules, including tariff classification, export and import license requirements, standards and approvals, product safety requirements, environmental certifications, preferential and nonpreferential origin rules, customs valuation, outward and inward processing procedures, and issues affecting the free movement of goods and services.

We also take on negotiations with customs authorities on matters such as customs valuation and obtaining binding tariff information. Furthermore, our team represents clients from all around the world in customs administration proceedings and domestic litigation in many jurisdictions.

To help businesses understand their current obligations and anticipate future requirements, we closely monitor legislative activity by the main EU institutions and domestic governments in key jurisdictions. We provide a comprehensive, tailored coverage across regulated sectors, including technology and digital, financial services, energy, infrastructure, and transportation.

We offer a thorough understanding of the political and legislative processes—in the European Union and beyond—including detailed knowledge of the various procedural phases and timings. Our experience extends from the national level to EU institutions themselves, and how they operate. This enables us to support clients in all aspects of the process, from initial legislative proposals to implementation, and to provide informed input to weigh in, wherever possible, on developing legislation

Our team guides clients in their engagement with regulators and key stakeholders, assessing opportunities to participate in the decision-making process at both the EU level and national level across key jurisdictions covered by our firm's global network. We provide insights on national and EU policy trends, as well as targeted, informed advice to help clients stay ahead of legislative and regulatory developments.

Keeping up to date in a constantly evolving sanctions environment, with expanding trade restrictions and export controls affecting many business activities, is critical to ensuring compliance, mitigating risks, and remaining competitive.

Our interdisciplinary team of global professionals work closely to provide comprehensive advice on U.S., EU, and U.K. sanctions and export control law.

We offer sector-specific and practical support for your projects including the design, implementation, and enhancement of global sanctions compliance and due diligence programs. We assist with the evaluation of existing and planned transactions in relation to sanctions, embargoes, and export control rules. We also have experience conducting complex internal investigations and regularly handle matters before government bodies in the United States, the United Kingdom, EU member states, Japan, and Australia, including applying for licences, submitting voluntary self-disclosures of breaches, and responding to enforcement investigations.

Thanks to our global network and years of trusted cooperation with government agencies and political stakeholders, we provide insightful and practice-orientated solutions that are both expedient and legally sound.