Practice

Mr. Bright, a consultant to the firm, practices in the field of antitrust law and utilities regulation in Europe. He has extensive experience of major cross-border M&A transactions, as well as advising a wide range of sectors on joint ventures, cartels, monopoly infringement, complex contractual arrangements and the European Union public procurement and state aid rules.

From 1989 to 1991, he was seconded to the UK government as an advisor in the competition policy division of the Department of Trade and Industry. He was a member of the UK Competition Commission for four years until September 2009. He is also non-executive director of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority that is responsible for the competition enforcement and the deregulation of telecoms and postal services in Jersey.

• Recently at the Competition Commission the South East Surrey water price appeal; BSkyB’s acquisition of an interest in ITV; PPI market investigation; sitting on the Commission’s Remedies group overseeing policy on and implementation of remedies.
  

• Handling takeovers and mergers at EU and worldwide level: Anglo American in its defence against Xstrata; a third party on Oracle/Sun Microsystems; a third party on BHP/Rio; Viacom on various European acquisitions; Nokia’s acquisition of Navteq; Norsk Hydro’s merger of oil and gas interests with Statoil; E.ON’s contemplated bid for Scottish Power; Koch Industries’ acquisition of Georgia Pacific; Teva’s acquisition of Ivax; Mittal’s acquisition of ISG; Citigroup’s acquisition of the custody services business of ABN AMRO; Fiat in its strategic arrangements with GM; AngloGold’s acquisition of Ashanti; GE’s acquisition of Instrumentarium; Bunge’s acquisition of Cereol; Carnival’s merger with P&O Princess; Bunge’s PTI/SPC joint venture with Du Pont; GE on the in-depth investigation by the European Commission into its merger with Honeywell; Cadbury Schweppes’ acquisition of Adams; strategic review of upstream oil and gas interests and opportunities for an oil major.
  

• Handling infrastructure projects and joint ventures: Dow on the Ras Tanura project; BG’s interest in Egypt LNG; various energy companies on their cooperation in the Medgaz pipeline; Dragon LNG on EU gas liberalisation directive issues and OFGEM implementation of rules for third-party access; Offsets on the Dolphin project.
  

• Advising Areva on the cartel damages claim by National Grid; Bunge on an oilseed cartel investigation by the EU among other cartel work.
  

• Advising MTV on an investigation by OFCOM into SVOD rights.
  

• Director of the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority
• Editorial Board, Utilities Law Journal