Deirdre advises on all areas of EU and UK competition law, in particular merger control, Articles 81/82 and the equivalent UK legislation, cartel investigations and appeal proceedings. She has been involved in a wide range of economic sectors, particularly the financial services, energy, transport, media, retailing and consumer goods sectors. She also has extensive experience in the liberalisation and regulation of the financial services, energy and transport sectors under EU and UK law. Her work includes proceedings before the European Commission, the Office of Fair Trading, Competition Commission and industry regulators and litigation before the Competition Appeals Tribunal.

Her recent experience includes:

  • advising Tesco on the Groceries Market investigation and groundbreaking successful judicial review against that decision before the Competition Appeals Tribunal, advising Tesco on its entry into convenience retailing, the Safeway Competition Commission investigation and the OFT's long running investigation of milk pricing. Deirdre also advised Tesco on the OFT's investigation of price-fixing of tobacco products, and where, following a seven-year investigation, Tesco was exonerated and fines totalling £225 million were imposed by the OFT on two tobacco companies and ten other retailers;
  • advising FirstGroup on the Competition Commission market investigation of the UK bus market;
  • advising ITV on the acquisition by BSkyB of a significant minority stake, including before the Competition Commission and Competition Appeals Tribunal;
  • advising the London Stock Exchange on the rival bids by Deutsche Borse and Euronext before the Competition Commission and other matters;
  • advising VISA Europe on various competition proceedings concerning multi-lateral and interchange fees in the EC, UK and elsewhere;
  • advising NBTY Inc, parent company of Holland & Barrett on the Competition Commission investigation of its acquisition of Julian Graves, cleared without remedy; 
  • advising EWS on its acquisition by Deutsche Bahn, cleared by DG Competition with Phase I commitments; and
  • advising GE Consumer Finance on the first market investigation under the Enterprise Act 2002.

Deirdre has been awarded The Lawyer's Competition Team of the Year twice in the past three years and is a frequent speaker and commentator on EU/UK competition and regulation matters.

Deirdre holds an MA in PPE from St. Hilda's College Oxford, has been a partner since 1995 and was Global Head of Freshfields' Competition Group from 2000-2006
.

Contact details

deirdre.trapp
@freshfields.com

  • London office
  • 65 Fleet Street
    London EC4Y 1HS
    United Kingdom
  • Telephone
  • +44 20 7832 7524
  • Fax
  • +44 20 7108 7524