Competition & Distribution

Our practice group covers the complete scope of horizontal and vertical agreements, abuse of dominance and special EU and Greek competition regulations, including technology transfers, unilateral price signaling, and so on. We are the go-to firm for automotive and tech competition matters. We daily advise and participate in planning and risk assessment, draft agreements on all types of distribution systems and cooperation agreements, review rebate and discount schemes. We have achieved the highest ever fine for abuse of dominance by a single undertaking.

We advise and litigate on mergers and acquisitions, both from the competition law and company and financing point of view in order to ensure timely and smooth anti-trust and other regulatory clearances and approvals. We have advised on JVs, acquisitions and mergers in the pharma, energy, IT and automotive sectors.

We advise commercial clients on EU and Greek funding schemes and compliance with State Aid rules, including but not limited to energy “green” transition. We were instrumental in negotiations with the European Commission’s department for competition (DG Comp) to significantly reduce the alleged state aid granted to a Greek state owned defence company.

We provide advice and litigation services with regard to competitors and consumers on all matters involving fair competition and consumer protection laws, economic dependence (relative dominance), intellectual property and trade secret laws.

The central role of advertising and promotions both in free competition and fair competition law and consumer protection law is undisputed. Communicating prices and other terms of trade intersects horizontal and vertical trade relations, discount and rebate policies must be viewed from the point of dominance, misleading advertising and regulation of promotions combine commercial and regulatory concerns and all form a complex web which businesses need to navigate daily.

Trade restrictions and sanctions in an ever increasing de-risking and de-coupling retreat of globalisation and the regionalisation of economies increase the risks of business and foreign direct investments. Our long-standing defence and IT experience have exposed us to many of the potential pitfalls, including but not limited to dual use goods, AML and KYC.

Designing and rolling-out business agreements, whether horizontal or vertical cannot be done without in depth knowledge of competition law. Whether exclusive or selective distribution, franchise, technology transfer agreements, trade secret confidentiality, mergers or joint ventures, wholesale and retail financing or T&Cs, all deals have to be structured in a way that will not fall foul of competition law.

We advise clients on good governance policies and practices, including competition training and compliance, tailored to their needs and the intersection between compliance and due diligence processes.