• Cartels - We have long been recognised as one of the leading teams in cartel work in London and regularly defend clients involved in international cartel investigations before the European Commission and Courts in Luxembourg, as well as in proceedings before the UK Office of Fair Trading. We have a track record in achieving total immunity from fines for our clients. We also provide coordinated defence strategies for clients involved in dawn raid situations.  Samantha Mobley, Ross Denton and Luis Gomez are leading practitioners in the field. For some details of our experience click on our Global Leniency Manual.
• Competition litigation - Competition Appeal Tribunal-related work is a key area in the UK competition law landscape and we have acted on numerous appeals before the CAT. Through our Competition Litigation Unit, we work on private enforcement cases (both ‘standalone’ and ‘follow-on’). We appear before the Court of First Instance and European Court of Justice, whether appealing decisions of the European Commission or on references from the national court. We are part of the CBI’s working group on competition litigation and have assisted BIAC before the OECD.
• Mergers - We have hands-on experience advising on merger control cases, both at an EC and UK level, and regularly coordinate the submission of merger control filings around the world. Clients benefit from our global expertise on merger issues in multijurisdictional transactions as we have experience worldwide through out network of competition practitioners. This takes the pressure off you. Samantha Mobley, Luis Gomez, Keith Jones and Helen Bardell regularly advise on major transactions for clients such as Platinum Equity, Rio Tinto, Nike and UBM. For further details of our experience in merger control, click on our Global Merger Control Manual.
• Market studies/investigations - Market studies and investigations are also on the increase in Europe - especially in the UK where the authorities are increasingly relying on these tools to assess why markets are not functioning properly. We have significant experience of advising companies in sectors under investigation -helping to put the best case forward as well as provide upfront advice on likely changes to the legal/regulatory environment.
• Compliance - We regularly prepare antitrust and competition compliance programmes for all industry sectors and, as part of our Firm's wider competition practice, are experienced in handling multi-country antitrust audits which are designed to identify potential antitrust problems.

Our Trade Practice
Our International Trade and WTO Practice based in London provides both public and private clients with legal services in respect of all aspects of international trade but with a focus on export controls and sanctions and customs law.

• Export controls and sanctions - We have the strongest export controls and sanctions practice of any law firm in Europe. Globally, we also benefit from a strongly coordinated trade practice. We advise on a breadth of issues covering not only the traditional areas of advice but also we explain to our clients how to comply with legislation related to anti-terrorism and controls governing weapons of mass destruction, which impact not only defence and high-tech companies, but also more traditional industrial companies. Due to the criminal nature of the export control and sanctions regimes, making submissions of voluntary disclosures to the authorities is now an important part of our practice. We therefore have close relations with the Department of Trade and Industry and HM Revenue and Customs.
• Customs - We have experience in developing and implementing global strategies to address the customs issues that face multinational corporations. We handle all aspects of strategic customs planning and compliance. We help secure favourable customs rulings and prepare strategies for usage of global classification and valuation. We also obtain interpretations of relevant WTO and regional agreements and conduct multijurisdictional studies of customs duties, laws and requirements. We have experience in advising companies both on how to comply with customs and excise rules and how to minimise their import duty payments by taking advantage of the relevant customs procedures. For further information as to our experience, contact Ross Denton.