Speaker details

Biography

Thomas heads Freshfields’ global antitrust, competition and trade practice group. His practice focuses on EU and international antitrust law, covering transactional and behavioural matters as well as related litigation. He regularly guides clients through complex multijurisdictional mandates, managing cross-border challenges and parallel proceedings before several authorities as well as leading teams of Freshfields lawyers and local counsel around the world. Thomas’ recent work, which crosses a range of industry sectors, has included the global competition strategy for Anheuser-Busch InBev’s $106bn acquisition of SABMiller, Boehringer Ingelheim’s €22bn transformational asset swap with Sanofi (including a rare triple “fix-it-first” Phase I clearance from the European Commission), and Novartis’ multi-billion global asset swap with GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly (which also involved EU Phase I remedies). He guided Liberty Global’s subsidiary Telenet, the largest provider of cable broadband services in Belgium, through the European Commission’s in-depth investigation of its €1.3bn ‘fixed to mobile’ acquisition of Belgium’s third-largest mobile network operator, BASE, and he was also part of the team that secured unconditional clearance for BT Group’s high profile £12.5bn acquisition of EE, which united the UK’s largest fixed and mobile telecoms operators. On the behavioural side, he is currently representing a FMCG client in a recently launched abuse of dominance investigation by the European Commission and he acted for Brussels Airport Company in its conclusion of a successful complaint before the European Commission against aid granted by the Walloon Government (Belgium) to rival airport Charleroi and on the ongoing appeal before the General Court. Thomas is vice-chair of the IBA’s Antitrust Committee and is a regular commentator on topics of EU and national antitrust law. Educated at the University of Leuven and Columbia Law School, he speaks English, Dutch and French.