Brussels-Based Antitrust/Competition Team Joins Dechert

BRUSSELS - Dechert LLP, a leading global law firm, is pleased to announce that it has bolstered its antitrust/competition group in Brussels with the arrival of a team led by partner Alec Burnside and includes Anne MacGregor, Marjolein De Backer and Adam Kidane. The group was previously with Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft.

“Alec is on everyone’s short list of outstanding competition law practitioners in Brussels,” said Michael Weiner, co-leader of the antitrust/competition practice group. “We are thrilled that this team has joined Dechert and we are now able to extend their exceptional understanding of European competition law and policy to our clients worldwide.”

Burnside focuses his practice in the area of EU competition law, with a particular focus on merger clearances, state aid, cartel defense, and abuse of dominance matters. Chambers Global 2016 noted Burnside is recognized by clients as “instrumental in reaching [their] goals," because of his “unique blend of creativity and persistence.”

“I am thrilled to join Dechert – a firm with a global reputation for excellence in competition and antitrust matters,” Burnside added. “I am looking forward to leveraging the firm’s formidable platform to serve my clients more efficiently and effectively.”

Over the past three decades, Burnside has played a key role in cases for leading corporations, global industries and governments on issues arising across a broad spectrum of industries, including consumer products, energy and natural resources, financial services, manufacturing, military, pharmaceuticals, technology, telecoms, and transport and logistics. A graduate of Downing College, Cambridge; College of Law, London; and the Institut d'Etudes Européennes in Brussels, Burnside is a foreign member of the Brussels Bar and is admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales.

MacGregor, who joins Dechert as a national partner, focuses her practice in the area of European antitrust and regulatory and trade matters. Recognized by Chambers Global and Chambers Europe 2016 who describe her as "perceptive, incisive and politically astute,” she was also named to Global Competition Review’s “100 Women in Antitrust 2016.” A graduate of the University of Hamburg and Australian National University, she is a foreign member of the Brussels Bar and is also admitted in New York, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, England and Wales, and as solicitor in Ireland.

With more than 40 dedicated antitrust/competition lawyers in Brussels, Frankfurt, New York, Paris, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., Dechert’s antitrust/competition practice has the global capability to develop creative solutions to the most difficult antitrust issues in merger clearance, litigation and business planning. The firm is consistently ranked among the leaders in legal directories and was named Antitrust Team of the Year by Chambers USA in 2014.

About Dechert

Dechert is a global specialist law firm focused on sectors with the greatest complexities and highest regulatory demands. We deliver practical commercial insight and judgment to our clients’ most important matters. Nothing stands in the way of giving clients the best of the firm’s entrepreneurial energy and seamless collaboration in a way that is distinctively Dechert.