James is head of the firm's competition and procurement team, specialising in UK and EU competition law, public procurement and state aid. His team provides advice on a wide range of competition law issues, ranging from structuring transactions and obtaining merger clearance through to dealing with cartels, abuse of a dominant position and the competition issues raised by agreements. The team offers public procurement and state aid advice both on a stand-alone, but also on an integrated basis as the issues often come up together. Typically this can mean helping public bodies get the funding, carry out the procurement process and deal with all the issues, including challenges, that can come up along the way.
"I have worked with European economic law for many years including time spent in Brussels, Copenhagen, France and Sweden. Working closely with the European Commission and many national regulators has given me a number of perspectives from which to approach problems and I love finding innovative solutions for our clients especially when I can use my wider experience of the European project. I have lectured on competition law at the University of Copenhagen and enjoy speaking and participating in seminars on and around my specialist areas - it is a great way to learn about and understand people’s concerns and once back in the office formulate effective and commercial solutions.
"Competition law, public procurement and state aid issues come up in many areas and as such I have been lucky to work with a broad range of clients in many markets including: education, commercial property, automotive, aviation, shipping, banking and insurance, hedge funds, music publishing and recording, information technology, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas exploration, nuclear power, beverages, logistics, retailing, luxury and branded goods and private equity."
James comes “highly recommended” in Legal 500, 2009