About Ashurst

Ashurst is a leading global law firm with a history spanning almost 200 years, and clear strategy for our future growth. Our in-depth understanding of our clients and commitment to providing exceptional standards of service have seen us become a trusted adviser to local and global corporates, financial institutions and governments in all areas of commercial law. To find out more please visit here.

In order to comply with regulatory and client requirements, Ashurst will undertake appropriate vetting of staff. When applicants accept a job offer, Ashurst, alongside a specialist provider, will undertake professional verification and background checks. These checks are only undertaken with consent, and in accordance with our legal and regulatory obligations.

Team overview:

The Ashurst London Competition team are highly sought after and have remained at the forefront of the market across the full spectrum of UK and EU competition law for many years, advising clients on a wide range of high-profile, and often ground-breaking matters before national competition authorities and the European Commission. Our team is highly experienced across the full suite of competition law issues including merger clearances; advising on and responding to investigations and prosecutions for cartel conduct, abuse of dominance, competition and consumer law issues; advising on market investigations and market studies; competition litigation; and State aid and subsidy control investigations and appeals. The Ashurst team is also highly recognised for its expertise in UK and EU public procurement law. We act for both procuring authorities and tenderers on many of the largest projects procured in the UK. Ashurst has long been active at the forefront of procurement law and regularly advises on complex and high profile award procedures. We are renowned for our procurement work in the infrastructure sector and, in particular, in relation to major PFI/PPP contracts. Ashurst has been appointed to a number of prestigious public sector frameworks and has recently been reappointed to the Crown Commercial Service's Finance & Complex Legal Services framework. Our procurement lawyers have in-depth experience of advising at all stages if complex procurements, as well as acting on High Court challenges.

The market leading nature of our practice is illustrated by the fact that, in addition to advising on investigations conducted by the UK Competition and Markets Authority and the European Commission, the team is currently advising clients on Competition Act investigations being carried out by concurrent sectoral regulators including Ofcom, the FCA and Ofgem, in their only competition cases.

The London competition team sit within a market-leading global competition and antitrust practice, with a team of over 80 specialist antitrust lawyers across Europe and Asia-Pacific. The team are consistently ranked in the Global Competition Review 'Global Elite', which recognises the world's top 25 competition practices.

Our in-house economists also remain a unique part of the team's proposition. We believe we continue to be the only London law firm able to offer clients fully integrated legal and economics expertise, and clients consistently identify this a crucial differentiating factor that adds significant value across the board but particularly in complex matters.

Job overview:

Associate in Ashurst's EU Competition Team, based in London. You will be part of the European Competition team advising on a full range of EU and domestic competition matters, including merger control, cartel and abuse of dominance investigations, competition law appeals of infringement decisions, and market investigations.

You will also be expected to advise on public procurement and state aid/subsidy control matters. In particular, we are looking for a candidate that would spend around half their time advising on these types of matters.

Essential skills and experience:

Experience advising on public procurement law matters. Experience advising on High Court procurement challenges would be highly desired.

Experience on a range of competition law matters (merger control and behavioural matters). Experience in advising on State aid/subsidy control matters would be highly desired.

Recent Work:

As an illustration of the work of the group we are currently acting, or have recently acted:

• Intel on the remittal to the EU General Court following its successful appeal to the ECJ in the rebates case. This is the most significant Article 102 judgment in more than 40 years and the first time the Commission has been defeated in an Article 102 case since 1979.
• Royal Mail on its appeal to the Competition Appeal Tribunal against Ofcom's decision which found that Royal Mail had engaged in unlawful price discrimination in breach of Article 102.
• Hargreave Hale in the FCA's first competition law investigation (relating to an alleged information exchange), and other financial institutions in relation to several of the FCA's market studies.
• SYNNEX on its $2.8 billion acquisition of Convergys which were notified to the EU Commission.
• Liberty House Group in relation to its proposed acquisition of the assets being required by the EU Commission to be divested by ArcelorMittal.
• Ryder Limited and four other subsidiaries in a £250 million private damages action against 20 defendants arising from the European Commission's decisions in relation to the trucks cartel.
• Transport for London in High Court proceedings in relation to the award of the £2 billion Silvertown Tunnel Project.
• Transport for London in three separate claims brought in the High Court in relation to the award of a £1.5 billion contract to Siemens for the supply of next generation rolling stock for the Deep Tube Lines.
• Virgin, Stagecoach and SNCF in a legal action against the Department for Transport over the procurement of the West Coast Partnership (WCP) franchise.
• The Government of Luxembourg in relation to a number of recent high profile European Commission fiscal State aid investigations and subsequent appeals to the EU Courts.

Representative Skills:

Candidate will have:

• Strong drafting capabilities
• Good legal research and analytical skills
• Ability to evaluate and deploy factual and economic evidence
• Familiarity with market economic principles
• A strong drive to deliver good outcomes for clients

Career advancement:

An established Associate Career Path Framework is in place clearly defining expectations and outlining opportunities for promotion.

Secondment opportunities:

Opportunities often arise for associates to spend time on secondment in house with a key client of the firm. From time to time, secondment opportunities also come up within other Ashurst offices in Europe, North America, Asia and Australia.

Salary: Competitive