Europe: Recent Developments in German and European Antitrust Law

Dr. Nicolas Kredel chairs Baker McKenzie's EMEA Antitrust & Competition Practice Group as well as the Firm’s global Future Mobility Group, he co-heads Baker McKenzie's German / Austrian antitrust practice and co-heads the Firm’s global Competition economics group. Nicolas has more than 15 years' experience advising on antitrust and competition law and is based in the Firm's Dusseldorf office. A seasoned antitrust lawyer, Nicolas is consistently recommended in various legal directories, including Chambers, Legal 500 and JUVE. He was awarded the ILO Client Choice Award three times in 2016, 2018 and 2020 for Antitrust (Germany).

• Website

Prof. Dr. Christian Burholt is a partner in the Firm's Berlin office. He has more than 18 years of experience representing German and international clients in antitrust, leniency, dominance, and merger control law matters. In addition, he is Head of the Firm's German Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry Group and member of the EMEA Healthcare & Life Sciences Steering Committee. Christian has been consistently recommended in various legal directories, including JUVE, Handelsblatt/Best Lawyers in Germany, Legal 500, Expert Guides Life Sciences and Who’s Who Legal, for his antitrust, merger control, pharma, medtech and healthcare work. Christian is admitted to the Berlin bar and a member of the German Association of Antitrust Lawyers and the Network Compliance. He is an honorary professor for antitrust law at the Berlin School of Economics and Law (Hochschule für Wirtschaft und Recht Berlin) and regularly lectures and publishes on antitrust and merger control topics.

Katharina Spenner is a partner in Baker McKenzie's Munich office and a member of the Firm's Steering Committee of the EMEA International Commercial & Trade Practice Group. She joined the Firm's Frankfurt office in 2000 and transferred to the Munich office in 2004. She was seconded to the Amsterdam office for eight months in 2003. Katharina previously worked as a freelancer in the legal department of Lufthansa Cargo AG from 1997 to 1999. She has written several commentaries on competition and distribution law and regularly delivers presentations and workshops on topics related to distribution and competition law.

Dr. Anika Schürmann is a Partner in Baker McKenzie’s Dusseldorf office. She is a bar-certified professional in criminal law (Fachanwältin für Strafrecht) and has extensive experience in advising in all antitrust and white collar crime related matters. She is admitted to the Dusseldorf bar and is a member of the German White Collar Crime Association, the Criminal Law Section of the German Bar Association, the Criminal Law Commission of the German Women Lawyers Association, the Association of Female Lawyers in White Collar Crime and Criminal Tax Law as well as the German Association of Antitrust Lawyers. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie in 2013, Anika was a member of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s antitrust team (2007-2011), and practiced at Wessing & Partner, a Dusseldorf law firm that specializes in white collar crime law (2012-2013). Anika's antitrust and criminal law expertise has repeatedly been recognized by The Legal 500, the renowned German business magazine Handelsblatt has ranked her as one of Germany's Best Antitrust Lawyers since 2020 while the renowned German business magazine Wirtschaftswoche ranks her as one of Germany's Best Compliance Lawyers.

• Website

Anahita Thoms heads Baker McKenzie's International Trade Practice in Germany and is a member of our EMEA Steering Committee for Compliance & Investigations. Anahita is Global Lead Sustainability Partner for our Industrials, Manufacturing and Transportation Industry Group. She serves as an Advisory Board Member in profit and non-profit organizations, such as Atlantik-Brücke, and is an elected National Committee Member at UNICEF Germany. She has served for three consecutive terms as the ABA Co-chair of the Export Controls and Economic Sanctions Committee and as the ABA Vice-Chair of the International Human Rights Committee. Anahita has also been an Advisory Board Member (Beirätin) of the Sustainable Finance Advisory Council of the German Government.

Anahita has won various accolades for her work, including 100 Most Influential Women in German Business (manager magazin), Top Lawyer (Wirtschaftswoche), Winner of the Strive Awards in the category Sustainability, Pioneer in the area of sustainability (Juve), International Trade Lawyer of the Year (Germany) 2020 ILO Client Choice Awards, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, Capital 40 under 40, International Trade Lawyer of the Year (New York) 2016 ILO Client Choice Awards. In 2023, Handelsblatt recognized her as one of Germany’s Dealmaker and “most sought after advisors of the country” in the field of sustainability.

• Website

Kurt Haegeman is the global chair of Baker McKenzie's Consumer Goods and Retail Industry Group, and a partner in Baker McKenzie’s EU Competition & Regulatory Affairs Practice in Brussels.

• Website

Samantha Mobley is a senior partner in the Competition, Trade & Foreign Investment Practice of Baker & McKenzie's London office and a member of the London office Management Committee. She is a former chair of Baker McKenzie's Global Antitrust and Competition Group, a team of over 300 competition and antitrust specialists worldwide. Samantha is a member of Baker McKenzie's India Steering Committee.

• Website

Jeff Martino brings an in-depth understanding of a wide variety of white collar and fraud related matters to his antitrust litigation and investigations practice. Jeff is co-lead of the Firm's Global Cartel Task Force and represents multinational corporations and their boards and executives in high-stakes criminal and civil investigations by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and other federal and state agencies Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, Jeff spent nearly two decades at the DOJ and his last 7 years as a senior leader in two different DOJ components. He has extensive experience as “first chair” on trials and investigations in the most complex areas of criminal antitrust. Jeff's work at the DOJ included providing technical assistance to competition agencies in Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe and overseeing matters that included international corruption and antitrust cartel offenses that entangled the largest global banks and their key executives.

• Website

Mark H. Hamer is Global Chair of the Firm's Antitrust & Competition Practice Group, comprised of over 300 competition lawyers in over 60 offices across 43 countries. Mark has over 25 years of wide-ranging litigation experience, including first-chair roles in jury trials, bench trials and arbitrations. His primary focus is antitrust litigation. Before joining Baker McKenzie, Mark was a successful trial attorney in the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice. He was involved in some of the DOJ's highest-profile antitrust trials. Before joining the DOJ, Mark was a partner at another global law firm where he handled complex multidistrict antitrust class actions in courts across the nation.

• Website

Jan Kresken, a partner, practices in the area of competition law, especially in the automotive, chemicals, pharmaceutical and (re)insurance sectors. He holds a degree in law from the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet Muenster (University of Muenster) and a master’s degree (LL.M.) in competition law, economics, and policy from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. After his studies, he began his PhD in competition law at the University of Muenster. Prior to joining Baker McKenzie, he worked as research assistant for Clifford Chance in Duesseldorf and as pupil barrister in the area of competition law for the German Bundeskartellamt (federal cartel office) and the firms Clifford Chance in Duesseldorf and Dierks & Bohle in Berlin.

• Website

Paulo Casagrande is a Partner at *Trench Rossi Watanabe, SP, Brazil office.
*Trench Rossi Watanabe and Baker McKenzie have executed a strategic cooperation agreement for consulting on foreign law.

• Website