Our competition practice offers unparalleled expertise in all areas of competition law across the UAE, other neighbouring GCC counties and Jordan and Egypt. With more than 330 lawyers in 17 offices, the Competition team is comprised of experienced professionals with a mix of international and regional backgrounds who all work in harmony to provide a seamless service.

What sets us apart is our ability to interact closely with the antitrust authorities in seeking guidance to the interpretation and implementation of some of the commonly addressed grey areas of the competition laws. Given the fairly recent emergence of the competition laws in the region, this direct dialogue with the antitrust authorities allows us to provide practical advices and solutions to our clients.

With a solid litigation, commercial and general advisory background, our team is able to advise on a broad range of competition law matters from merger control regimes, to counselling on cartel investigations, to cross-border transactions (mergers, joint ventures) and to defending our clients from antitrust complaints.

<strong>Areas of Expertise</strong>

<strong>Merger Control</strong>

Our competition law team regularly advises major international clients on merger control notification requirements particularly those stemming from cross border transactions. We are experienced in assessing complex transactions and advising whether the proposed deals would trigger notification requirements before each national competition authority.

<strong>Compliance and Counselling </strong>

We have expertise in devising optimal training and counselling programs tailor-made to each client’s needs. We believe that prevention is key and aim to devise programs and trainings that would address the commonly raised issues on antitrust violations and the means to prevent them.

We have delivered several training programs to major international clients to ensure their legal and commercial teams are well versed in achieving day-to-day competition law compliance.

<strong>Dominance and Unilateral Market Conduct </strong>

The conduct and practice of companies with high market power are regularly scrutinised by their competitors and national competition authorities. Without an adequate strategy in place, these companies could face allegations of abuse of dominant position, subjecting them to high penalties and sanctions.

We regularly advise clients on the main conducts and practices that would trigger allegations of market abuse such as discriminatory pricing, discrimination between one customer over another in terms of supply; the refusal to supply and discriminatory discounts and rebate.

<strong>General Advisory for Agreements and Conduct with other Parties</strong>

We advise on the antitrust/competition implications arising out of horizontal and vertical agreements. Our advice includes the review of commercial agreements between competitors, suppliers, distributors, customers and others. We advise clients on the rules governing exchange of information between competitors and have prepared guidelines outlining the do’s and don’ts between competitors.

<strong>Competition Dispute</strong>

We have successfully defended the largest movie distributor in the Middle East in a competition Law complaint alleging anti competitive practices and putting barriers to market access. We were able to gather an elaborate study from all cinema and movie exhibitors and distributors and arrived at the proper market share percentages to throw out the complaint.