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James Marshall

James Marshall advises on all aspects of competition law and foreign direct investment (FDI) screening, with a focus on merger and FDI control, investigations and enforcement, commercial counselling, and abuse of dominance. He has strong experience in the life sciences, energy & infrastructure, digital and technology, financial services, and sports sectors.

James regularly leads cross-border teams to steer clients through both the merger control and FDI aspects of major global deals. Clients turn to James to help them navigate complex global transactions, and to find innovative solutions to antitrust enforcement and counselling matters.

Earlier in his career, James worked with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), where he helped develop the UK’s antitrust and regulated sector enforcement regimes. He also practiced for several years in the Asia-Pacific region and has experience advising on competition, regulatory, and public policy issues in Asia and the Middle East.

James is a former Chair of the Competition Section Advisory Committee of the Law Society of England and Wales. He is highly recommended by Legal 500 and is recognized as leading adviser by Who’s Who Legal. James is dual qualified in England and Wales, and the Republic of Ireland.

Contact:Read more about James MarshallEmail

On 18 July 2024, the current President of the European Commission (“Commission”), Ursula von der Leyen, was reconfirmed by the European Parliament for a second 5-year term. As part of her reconfirmation, President von der Leyen delivered a speech before the European Parliament, complemented by a 30-page program, which lays down the Commission’s political program for the next five years.

A key pillar of the program – “A new plan for Europe’s sustainable prosperity and competitiveness” – has the objective of combining competitiveness and prosperity with the achievement of the European Green Deal goals.

Specifically on competition policy, according to President von der Leyen, a new approach is needed to achieve this objective. This blog post projects where competition policy is likely headed in the 2024-2029 period by commenting on the most relevant paragraphs of the program.Continue Reading The 2024-2029 Commission Political Guidelines: Where Is Competition Policy Likely Headed?

This year, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) is set to gain a range of new enforcement powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (“DMCC”) Act (the final text is now available here). The DMCC Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024. However, with certain exceptions, the Act’s provisions will not come into force until secondary legislation is passed. The CMA initially expected its new responsibilities to become operational in the Autumn, but this timeline may be delayed due to the UK’s election on 4 July. On the same day as the DMCC Act became law, the CMA published for consultation its new Digital Markets Competition Regime Guidance.

An outline of the key provisions of the DMCC Act can be found here. As the CMA sets the groundwork for exercising its powers under this new regime, this blog post considers five practical considerations for firms active in the UK.

Key takeaways:

  1. The CMA will administer the new regime through a specialist Digital Markets Unit, which was established over three years ago.
  2. The DMCC Act may diverge from the EU’s Digital Markets Act, both in the companies being designated, and the obligations imposed on designated companies.
  3. The interplay between the DMCC regime and existing regulatory obligations – particularly the GDPR – is likely to raise practical challenges.
  4. We expect the CMA to exercise its powers under the digital markets regime alongside existing antitrust tools (which the DMCC Act amends).
  5. The CMA’s jurisdictional thresholds to review mergers under the UK’s merger control regime will change as a result of the DMCC Act.

Continue Reading The UK’s New Digital Markets Regime: Some Key Takeaways

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers (“DMCC”) Act received Royal Assent on 24 May 2024 (the final text is now available here). The DMCC Act will only enter into force, however, when secondary commencement legislation has been enacted (with some minor exceptions). This is expected to occur in Autumn 2024, but it…

Continue Reading Overview of the UK’s New Digital Markets Regime

Recent proposals to amend the UK’s national security investment screening regime mean that investors may in future be required to make mandatory, suspensory, pre-closing filings to the UK Government when seeking to invest in a broader range of companies developing generative artificial intelligence (AI). The UK Government launched a Call for Evidence in…

Continue Reading UK Government Consults on Amending Mandatory Filing Obligations for AI Acquisitions

What do you need to know?

Following a call for information earlier this year, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has now announced the changes it intends to make to its merger review process. The majority of the changes are to the Phase 2 process, which is only encountered in a minority of formal…

Continue Reading Towards a More Interactive Merger Review Process: UK CMA Proposes Amendments

The EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) adopted in December 2022 creates a new instrument to prevent foreign subsidies from distorting the European Union (EU) internal market. It aims to fill a perceived regulatory gap left by EU State aid rules applying to subsidies granted by EU countries but not by foreign states. It started to…

Continue Reading What does the new EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) mean for companies doing business in the EU?

Over the summer, the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (“BEIS”) delivered the first decisions, in the form of final orders, under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 (“NSIA”).  We consider these decisions and other cases in the context of the first nine months of the UK’s new (quasi) Foreign Direct Investment (“FDI”) regime.

Key takeaways:

  • The NSIA has broad reach, and BEIS has shown willingness to exercise the powers to review transactions that can stretch beyond mergers and acquisitions, for example, to licensing agreements.
  • NSIA review involves the weighing of a number of factors relating to the target, the acquirer and the level of control being obtained.  Early decisions suggest that target’s products/services and activities are just as important a factor as the acquirer’s identity, among the cases that have engaged the attention of the Investment Security Unit (“ISU”).
  • “Behavioural” undertakings, e.g. involving implementation of security controls or granting of audit rights to regulators appear to be a continuation of trends seen in the predecessor UK ‘public interest’ regime, and similar to other EU FDI procedures.

Continue Reading UK FDI: Decision-making practice emerging under the National Security and Investment Act

The UK government has reported a successful start to the implementation of the National Security and Investment Act 2021 (the “NSIA” or “Act”). During the first three months (Jan-March 2022) in which the new NSIA regime has been active, the Investment Screening Unit (“ISU”) received 222 filings and reviewed 17 transactions in depth. Of those 17 transactions, three have been cleared unconditionally, with the other 14 transactions still under review at the end of the reporting period.

Mandatory NSIA filings, which represented 196 of the total flings, were most commonly made in six sectors: defence, military and dual-use, critical suppliers to government, artificial intelligence, data infrastructure and advanced materials.  There were significantly fewer filings in other sectors, with fewer than five filings per sector in areas such as synthetic biology, civil nuclear, advanced robotics and transport.

Collectively, these figures and other data suggest that the NSIA regime is operating, so far, broadly in line with expectations. While there are fewer filings than expected overall, this may reflect a broader global slowdown in M&A and investment activity. The ISU further reports that it is meeting, and often working well within, the maximum statutory time periods for the assessment of filings. The ISU indicates its willingness to complete reviews expeditiously where possible, including for in-depth assessments.Continue Reading UK National Security and Investment Regime Working Well

On 28 April 2022, the Subsidy Control Bill (the “Bill”) received Royal Assent, becoming the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (the “Act”).  The Act lays the basic framework for the new UK-wide subsidy control regime, which is now expected to come into force in Autumn 2022.  Although the Act primarily addresses UK public authorities and their legal obligations relating to the awarding of domestic subsidies, the new regime will be of particular interest to companies wishing to benefit from the more flexible post-Brexit subsidy regime moving forward.
Continue Reading UK Subsidy Control Bill granted Royal Assent

When the UK left the EU on 31 December 2020, the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) gained new powers, functions and responsibilities previously exclusively reserved to the European Commission (the “Commission”).

This blog explores how the CMA has tackled its increased workload in the first year post-Brexit, under the shadow of the global pandemic, and the extent to which the CMA’s practice has diverged from EU law.Continue Reading Trends, developments and divergence from EU law? The CMA’s first year as a global competition authority