London, 21 December 2005 – Shearman & Sterling LLP’s global antitrust group has been bolstered with the election of Matthew Readings from Lovells as a partner. He will become the 26th partner in the office.
Matthew Readings practises both EU and UK antitrust law, and advises on both merger and behavioural/contentious matters. He became a partner at Lovells in May 2004. Matthew has advised a broad range of global and UK corporates and private equity houses on merger and behavioural issues before the European Commission, UK Office of Fair Trading and UK Competition Commission. His experience also includes advising on competition litigation before the English High Court and on appeal proceedings before the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
Ken Prince, head of the Firm’s global antitrust practice, commented:
“Since it was established in 2001, our London antitrust practice has steadily developed market recognition and reputation through our involvement in high profile and complex antitrust M&A cases. Matthew is an intelligent, highly motivated and energetic partner who will be a great asset in taking us to the next stage of our development.”
London office managing partner Kenneth MacRitchie said:
“An increasing number of major transactions face complex regulatory hurdles, and first-rate EU and UK competition and regulation advice is an essential part of our high-end, full-service client offering in London. Matthew has wide-ranging competition expertise and his arrival is an important step in the on-going development of our London based antitrust capability.”
Shearman & Sterling’s European antitrust practice has shown remarkable development over the last few years, growing rapidly from two partners in 2000 to six with Matthew’s election. It has offices in Brussels, Germany, London and Paris, and has a number of leading competition practitioners, including Chris Bright, Hans-Jürgen Meyer-Lindemann, Hans-Joachim Hellmann and Annette Schild. The firm has continued to invest in new European antitrust talent with election in Brussels of Silvio Cappellari to the partnership in early 2005, and has built a pan-European team drawn from many major antitrust practices across Europe.
A key feature of the Shearman & Sterling antitrust group is the combination of its long-standing US expertise with strength and depth in the UK, Brussels, Germany and France. The global group regularly obtains clearance for major transactions on both sides of the Atlantic. It has recently advised Novartis on its acquisitions of Hexal and Eon Labs, Siemens on its acquisition of VA Tech, Mittal Steel on its acquisition of ISG and is currently advising Paramount on its acquisition of DreamWorks, Georgia Pacific on its acquisition by Koch and Deutsche Bahn on its acquisition of Bax Global. The Firm’s EU antitrust group has recently advised E.ON on its proposed bid for Scottish Power and Ivax on its merger with Teva, Anglo American on the sale of Boart Longyear, Renolit on the acquisition of Solvay’s industrial foils business and Viacom on a number of transactions, including the disposal of UCI Cinemas.
Matthew will join the London team, which is led by Chris Bright. In 2006 Chris Bright will become a Member of the UK Competition Commission but will remain in the London office as a consultant and will work closely with Matthew to continue to build and develop the London team.