With more than 20 years’ experience of enforcement agencies, regulatory authorities and courts in the UK and at EU level, Rod draws on industry knowledge, evidential rigour and a keen strategic awareness to help clients develop arguments that play well with the decision makers.
Dividing his time between Brussels and London, Rod acts as strategic adviser to a range of corporates, financial institutions, global financial investors and governmental bodies. Rod’s practice spans merger control, antitrust, State aid and sector-specific economic regulation, with particular focus on the pharma, financial services, telecoms, media, technology, consumer products, energy and transport sectors. Rod is ranked in Band 1 of the Chambers directory. His work has also been recognised in the Financial Times’ Innovative Lawyers report and Global Competition Review.
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- Advising BT/Openreach on its fibre network build and commercial business model to deliver “full-fibre” broadband around the UK.
- Advising Zoopla (ZPG Ltd) on its growth strategy – involving commercial arrangements, a string of acquisitions and its recent £2.26bn sale to US private equity firm Silver Lake Ventures.
- Assisting Merck KGaA on the €4.2bn sale of its consumer healthcare business to Procter & Gamble. EU unconditional clearance was successfully obtained at Phase 1.
- Assisting the global healthcare company Roche on its successful $4.3bn acquisition of Spark Therapeutics, a test case for the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s current focus on non-UK mergers between incumbents and disruptors. Roche secured unconditional clearance in the UK at Phase 1. The case involved particularly close cooperation between the US and UK antitrust teams.
- Advising CVC Capital Partners on winning all the necessary merger clearances for its sale of Formula 1 to Liberty Media.
- Representing Global Media on its strategic diversification from broadcast radio into out-of-home advertising. The project involved three acquisitions in quick succession, the last of which, Exterion Media, was investigated by the CMA but unconditionally cleared at Phase 1 after an intense review.
- Advising RWE the leading German utility owner of Innogy and Npower, on the UK aspects of its European wide portfolio transformation deal with E.ON.
- Helping BT achieve unconditional competition clearance for its acquisition of EE, a merger that brought together the UK’s largest fixed and mobile telecoms operators.
- Assisting the global healthcare companies Novartis and Boehringer-Ingelheim in securing EU clearance for their complex asset swap deals with, respectively, GSK and Sanofi.
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