Profile: Malcolm Nicholson

Competition

Biography: Competition

Malcolm Nicholson was educated at Cambridge and Brussels Universities and joined Slaughter and May in 1972. He became a partner in 1982. He leads the firm's competition practice from London.

He has obtained regulatory clearance from the European Commission's merger task force for a number of high-profile mergers and acquisitions, including both phase II "serious doubts" cases (ie, Guinness/Grand Metropolitan) and phase I cases settled by undertakings (such as Unilever/Bestfoods and Glaxo Wellcome/SmithKline Beecham). More recent cases include BHP Billiton/Western Mining and Ineos/Innovene/BP Dormagen, recently cleared unconditionally following a phase II investigation. He represented Airtours (MyTravel) in its appeal to the CFI against the decision prohibiting its proposed merger with First Choice - the first time a merger party has successfully challenged a prohibition decision under the ECMR.

In the UK, he has extensive experience before the OFT and the Competition Commission, including both merger and monopoly inquiries. Recently he has been involved in Competition Commission merger references involving publishing (Reed Elsevier/Harcourt General), banking (Lloyds TSB/Abbey National), cruising (P&O Princess/Royal Caribbean), mail order (Littlewoods/GUS Home Shopping), stock exchanges (Euronext/LSE), sauces (HJ Heinz/HP Foods) and soft drinks (Cott/Macaw). His UK monopoly experience includes acting for Airtours on the Competition Commission Foreign Package Holidays inquiry.

Malcolm also has particular experience in utilities regulation, stemming initially from his involvement in the regulatory and competition aspects of many privatisations, including gas, electricity and railways.

On the contentious front, he has been engaged in a number of landmark cases before the European Commission and the European Courts. In addition to MyTravel (currently seeking damages from the Commission in respect of its wrongly prohibited merger), he has been advising Unilever in proceedings before the ECJ and in other fora relating to their ice-cream distribution policies.