Antitrust and competition
Utility and infrastructure regulation
We provide expert regulatory advice to businesses operating in regulated sectors.
We are recognised leaders in helping clients navigate regulatory frameworks and, where necessary, challenge regulatory decision-making. We work with some of the largest and highest-profile regulated service providers around the world in sectors including airports, energy, nuclear, rail, telecoms, and water and sewerage.
Our expertise spans a wide range of regulatory work, including advising on price control settlements; licence modifications and other changes to regulatory frameworks; sectoral regulator investigations; enforcement proceedings; and legal challenges to decisions of sectoral regulators (including judicial review). We also provide specialist advice on regulatory issues that arise in transactional and financing contexts, and advise on engagement with sectoral regulators.
We have a strong track record of securing positive outcomes in the most difficult cases, securing big wins in complex and cutting-edge mandates. Combined with our leading antitrust and foreign investment regulation practice, we operate at the forefront of regulatory developments and our integrated expertise means we provide the highest quality advice on every aspect of regulatory mandates.
As well as collaborating with key stakeholders in clients’ businesses, we work closely with other advisers, including expert regulatory economists, public affairs experts and policy advisers.
Recent client successes
UK
We have been involved in all major price reviews in recent years and have also been involved with more Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) references and appeals than, we believe, any other firm.
Our experience includes:
- Advising Yorkshire Water on its PR19 price control and redetermination to the CMA, resulting in business-critical parameters being redetermined in Yorkshire Water’s favour.
- Advising SSE on its electricity transmission business’ appeal to the CMA of the RIIO-T/GD2 price control. The appeal was of fundamental importance to the UK energy industry. The CMA found in favour of the appellants in relation to two of SSE’s grounds of appeal, relating to Ofgem’s proposal to seek to insert “self-modification” provisions into the licence and Ofgem’s novel application of an “outperformance wedge”.
- Advising Firmus Energy in the first appeal under the new Northern Irish energy licence appeal regime to the CMA of its gas distribution price control. Firmus successfully appealed elements of the price control, such as opex and the connections incentive, as well as establishing several points of principle regarding the regime and appeals process.
- Advising Heathrow Airport on its appeal to the CMA of the Civil Aviation Authority’s price control decision for the H7 period and its successful defence of third party appeals by British Airways, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Delta Air Lines Inc.
We have advised extensively on non-price control related regulatory developments across sectors.
Our experience includes advising on licence compliance and modification, market investigations, regulatory enforcement action and judicial review of regulatory decisions. For example:
- Advising BT Group on the deal negotiated with Ofcom regarding the enhanced separation of its wholesale Openreach division.
- Advising SSE on its engagement with the CMA on its market investigation regarding the supply and acquisition of energy in Great Britain.
We are highly experienced in providing specialist regulatory advice on transactions in UK regulated sectors and advising on any associated regulatory consents / notifications.
EU
We provide specialist regulatory advice on legal frameworks governing regulated activities.
In the energy sector, this includes advising on:
- Certification and unbundling of network operators, network access and network tariffs, energy trading (including REMIT, MAR, MiFID II, EWIR compliance), CBAM and EU ETS, district heating regulations, energy security law and revenue caps.
- The implications of overarching EU law developments such as the redesign of the electricity market as well as the Net Zero Industry Act.
- Drafting and negotiating energy contracts such as PPAs, HPAs, direct marketing agreements, terminal use agreements, long-term gas supply agreements, grid connection agreements and all types of EFET agreements.
- The legal frameworks regulating fossil fuel and renewable energy sources as well as new technologies including hydrogen, ammonia CCS, CCU, synthetic fuels and electric mobility.
