Profile: Nicholas French

Competition

Biography: Competition

Nicholas French is a partner in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's antitrust, competition and trade (ACT) group. He is based in London, but has also lived and continues to work extensively in Brussels.

Nicholas advises on all competition issues and has experience across a wide range of industries. He has led many cases in front of the European Commission and the UK's Office of Fair Trading in the areas of mergers and joint ventures, alliances and cooperation arrangements and distribution networks, as well as cartels and dominance or monopolisation inquiries. He is particularly active in the areas of healthcare, construction, infrastructure, consumer products, manufacturing, private equity and water regulation.

Nicholas' significant clients in recent M&A transactions include Danone, Goldman Sachs, Holcim, Macquarie, Smiths and Tesco. He has also advised on some of the most important recent UK infrastructure deals, including the acquisitions of Associated British Ports, Bristol Water and Anglian Water. Notable non-M&A cases include representing PepsiCo in the European Commission's highly successful inquiry into abuse of dominance by Coca-Cola, and representing Tesco on a long-running investigation into milk pricing in the UK. He has spoken widely on competition issues, including most recently in Europe, North America and Australia.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is a leading international law firm with a network of 26 offices across Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East providing a full range of legal services worldwide. Members of the firm's 250-strong ACT group are based in Amsterdam, Beijing, Berlin, Bratislava, Brussels, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Shanghai, Tokyo, Vienna and Washington, DC.