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Competition & EU

Successful companies don’t just wait for antitrust and competition regulations to impact them. They anticipate what’s coming and act now, to reduce the risk of cartel investigations, penalties, litigation and forced divestments – and to keep M&A deals, joint ventures and alliances alive. 

Through our worldwide reach, deep sector knowledge and broad antitrust and competition experience, we help clients navigate an increasingly complex regulatory environment, and defend against alleged anti-competitive behaviour, to face the future with confidence.

With more than 220 Competition & EU lawyers, in 48 cities across 36 countries, we have one of the largest global teams, with a growing presence in China, Latin America and Africa. We’re especially strong in Europe, dealing with both the European Commission and the national competition authorities and sector regulators, as well as European and national courts. We have a dedicated CMS EU Law Office in Brussels. 

Our renowned sector specialisation encompasses consumer products, construction,  energy, oil & gas, life sciences, automotive, telecommunications and transport, to name but a few. When clients choose CMS Competition & EU lawyers, they receive practical, innovative advice and solutions from approachable professionals, working together across borders and sharing their expertise. 

We also pioneer the use of technology, harnessing the power of AI to dramatically speed up email and document trails to unearth key evidence. Our CMS Dawn Raid App offers clients real-time dawn raid assistance via their smartphone in 27 countries where CMS operates.

Staying competitive is hard enough as it is, without the additional challenge of antitrust investigations and defences. CMS’ Competition & EU lawyers can help clients keep one step ahead of emerging risks, remain compliant, and focus on growing their business.  

We cover every area of Competition & EU law

  • Vertical agreements    
  • Horizontal agreements    
  • Abuse of dominance and economic dependence    
  • Cartel and competition investigations    
  • Compliance    
  • Private enforcement    
  • Merger control    
  • State aid   
  • Foreign investment    
  • Foreign subsidies control    
  • Rules of free movement   
  • Regulated industries    
  • Digital markets    
  • EU Trade Law and Sanctions    
  • Unfair trading practises  

Contact us

Please reach out to any of our Competition & EU lawyers to find out how we can help you.

See our most recent CMS Expert Guides on Competition & EU, and other related content.

31/01/2022
CMS Com­pet­i­tion As­so­ci­ates
Our CMS Com­pet­i­tion As­so­ci­ate group (CMS-CA) is a key ini­ti­at­ive to provide our ju­ni­or and seni­or as­so­ci­ates with a plat­form for the young­er gen­er­a­tion, boost col­lab­or­a­tion and foster in­nov­a­tion at all levels with­in the CMS Com­pet­i­tion & EU Group, both in­tern­ally and ex­tern­ally. We have cur­rently 25 mem­bers from 23 of­fices, work­ing on a vari­ety of ini­ti­at­ives and 4 key pro­jects. One of them you can see down be­low and the rest will fol­low soon.  Pod­cast pro­ject: DiGi POD  Our pod­cast series on trend­ing com­pet­i­tion law de­vel­op­ments. More in­form­a­tion here.  Meet our CMS Com­pet­i­tion As­so­ci­ates  
Brochures

Competition & EU Group | Steering Committee

Portrait of Michael Bauer
Dr. Michael Bauer
Partner
Brussels - EU Law Office
Portrait of Małgorzata Urbańska
Małgorzata Urbańska
Partner
Warsaw
Portrait of Dirk Van Liedekerke
Dirk Van Liedekerke
Partner
Brussels
Portrait of Marquard Christen
Marquard Christen, LL.M., MAS
Partner
Zurich
Portrait of Brian Sher
Brian Sher
Partner
London
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08/04/2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to state aid in the EU dur­ing coronavir­us crisis
 The Coronavir­us (COV­ID-19) pan­dem­ic is hav­ing a sig­ni­fic­ant eco­nom­ic im­pact around the world. In re­sponse to this, EU Mem­ber States have es­tab­lished (or are plan­ning fur­ther) sup­port meas­ures for busi­nesses. Some of these sup­port meas­ures may amount
Expert Guide COVID-19: The new normal?
28/10/2021
EU Com­pet­i­tion Con­fer­ence 2021
Thank you for at­tend­ing EU Com­pet­i­tion Con­fer­ence 2021You can now watch the re­cord­ings from the event here.The EU Com­mis­sion has been very act­ive and is cur­rently work­ing on a high num­ber of leg­al pro­jects rep­res­ent­ing an un­pre­ced­en­ted whole­sale rene
Event Legal
15/06/2022
EU Com­pet­i­tion Law Brief­ings
The EU Com­pet­i­tion Law Brief­ings have been cre­ated to provide a plat­form for our cli­ents and oth­er com­pet­i­tion law ex­perts to stay up to date on the de­vel­op­ments of EU Com­pet­i­tion Law. Every month CMS com­pet­i­tion ex­perts will present a re­cent case by
Event Webinar

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23/05/2022
Ten key takeaways of the draft re­vi­sion for the EU mer­ger con­trol pro­ced­ure
Fol­low­ing its eval­u­ation of pro­ced­ur­al and jur­is­dic­tion­al as­pects of EU mer­ger con­trol, on 6 May 2022 the European Com­mis­sion pub­lished drafts for a re­vised Mer­ger Im­ple­ment­ing Reg­u­la­tion (in­clud­ing Form...
Law-Now Competition
20/05/2022
Pri­or­it­ies of the Bel­gian Com­pet­i­tion Au­thor­ity for 2022
On 12 May 2022, the Bel­gian Com­pet­i­tion Au­thor­ity (the “Au­thor­ity”) is­sued its an­nu­al com­mu­nic­a­tion set­ting out its policy pri­or­it­ies for the cur­rent year. This pub­lic­a­tion, which has ex­is­ted since...
Law-Now Competition & European Union
17/05/2022
Spot­light on UK Design Law: Part 2 - Sim­pli­fy­ing the designs sys­tem
The UKIPO re­cog­nises that the cur­rent design frame­work is highly com­plex, in­volving three dif­fer­ent types of un­re­gistered rights (two of which ori­gin­ate from EU law) in ad­di­tion to re­gistered designs...
Law-Now Manufacturing
12/05/2022
10 key as­pects of the re­vised EU com­pet­i­tion law in the field of dis­tri­bu­tion...
The new Ver­tic­al Block Ex­emp­tion Reg­u­la­tion (VBER) and the new ac­com­pa­ny­ing Ver­tic­al Guidelines (VGL) were pub­lished on 10 May 2022. The new VBER will enter in­to force on 1 June 2022 and ap­ply for the...
Law-Now Commercial
12/05/2022
Ab­use of eco­nom­ic de­pend­ency in Bel­gi­um – cur­rent state of af­fairs
The pro­hib­i­tion on ab­us­ing an un­der­tak­ing’s eco­nom­ic de­pend­ency, which came in­to force on 22 Au­gust 2020, tar­gets a situ­ation where an un­der­tak­ing ab­uses the eco­nom­ic­ally de­pend­ent po­s­i­tion of an­oth­er...
Law-Now Competition & European Union
11/05/2022
The Gen­er­al Court of the EU con­firms the leg­al­ity of the res­cue aid to...
On 4 May 2022, the Gen­er­al Court of the EU con­firmed the leg­al­ity of the Com­mis­sion's de­cision ap­prov­ing res­cue aid of 36.66 mil­lion EUR from Ro­mania to the air­line TAR­OM. It found that the aid was in­deed...
Law-Now Competition
09/05/2022
UKIPO Call for Views on designs re­gime
Spot­light on UK Design Law  Re­view­ing the UK designs frame­work – UKIPO’s Call for Views The leg­al pro­tec­tion of design rights in the UK is no pic­nic. As IP prac­ti­tion­ers and design busi­nesses will...
Law-Now Manufacturing
22/05/2022
ACC Europe An­nu­al Con­fer­ence 2022
Do­ing busi­ness in di­verse mar­kets, each with its unique leg­al en­vir­on­ment and ways of prac­ti­cing law, re­quires spe­cial­ist know­ledge. Our more than 5,000 law­yers in 44 coun­tries world­wide provide busi­ness-fo­cused...
Event Legal
29/04/2022
UK Sub­sidy Con­trol re­gime: Roy­al As­sent
On 28 April 2022, the Sub­sidy Con­trol Bill re­ceived Roy­al As­sent, form­ally mak­ing the Bill in­to an Act of Par­lia­ment – the Sub­sidy Con­trol Act 2022.  However, as high­lighted in our ho­ri­zon scan­ning...
Law-Now Banking & Finance
27/04/2022
Ro­mania trans­poses EU Dir­ect­ive on un­fair trad­ing prac­tices in ag­ri­cul­ture...
Ro­mania re­cently ad­op­ted Law no. 81/2021 on un­fair trad­ing prac­tices between un­der­tak­ings in the ag­ri­cul­tur­al and food sup­ply chain, which trans­poses the EU­'s Un­fair Trad­ing Prac­tices Dir­ect­ive. This...
Law-Now Competition & EU
22/04/2022
Do Chinese sub­si­di­ar­ies of EU share­hold­ers and EU na­tion­als in China have...
Re­cently the EU im­posed ad­di­tion­al sanc­tions on Rus­sia and Rus­si­an com­pan­ies and in­di­vidu­als. For for­eign in­ves­ted en­ter­prises with EU share­hold­ers and EU na­tion­als in China, the ques­tions arises wheth­er...
Law-Now TMC - Technology, Media & Communications
20/04/2022
New con­sumer pro­tec­tion law an­nounced
Fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s 2021 Con­sulta­tion Pa­per on po­ten­tial new con­sumer pro­tec­tion re­forms (which we dis­cussed in a pre­vi­ous art­icle), the Gov­ern­ment has, on 20 April 2022, an­nounced sig­ni­fic­ant...
Law-Now TMT - Technology, Media & Telecommunications
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