Douglas Lahnborg
Partner
Brussels
London
Douglas Lahnborg's practice focuses on EU and UK Antitrust and Competition Law.
Douglas has represented clients before the European Commission and the Competition and Markets Authority for more than 20 years in all areas of competition law. He provides multinational clients with innovative solutions on high-profile complex matters including merger control, abuse of dominance, private damages actions and cartel investigations, often involving multiple jurisdictions. He founded our Brussels office.
Douglas has acted for clients in a broad range of industries, including software, technology, telecommunications, manufacturing, consumer goods, energy, healthcare, and defence. He is representing Microsoft, Sonos and Telenor in merger control and technology matters.
Douglas advises on the UK national security regime. He has contributed to working groups organized by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy and the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on the National Security & Investment Bill.
Douglas has been recognised as a leading antitrust and competition practitioner by Chambers. He is known for being "skilled, easy to work with and very service-minded". GCR’s Who’s Who Legal recognises Douglas as “an excellent technical lawyer in the competition space”. Douglas is also ranked as a leading competition lawyer in Legal 500 UK 2021, described by one client as "very experienced and good at finding strategic and practical solutions".-
Representative behavioural/contentious cases
- Sony Europe Limited in its damages action before the High Court against AU Optronics and other LCD manufacturers
- Asian technology group in its defence before the EU Commission in the DRAM cartel investigation
- UK technology group in its defence in a Transatlantic cartel investigation involving the Office of Fair Trading and the U.S. Dep’t of Justice
- Enron Coal Services in its private damages claim against English Welsh & Scottish Railway Ltd before the Competition Appeal Tribunal and the Court of Appeal. This is the first follow-on action to have reached trial in the UK
- Asian manufacturer in its defence in an animal feed cartel investigation
- Car parts manufacturer in its defence in global cartel investigations
- GlaxoSmithKline in the EU Commission’s abuse of dominance investigation into GSK’s enforcement of intellectual property rights relating to paroxetine
- NVIDIA in the EU Commission’s abuse of dominance investigation into Rambus’ charging of royalty rates
- Telenor in the EU Commission’s investigation into its long term pay-TV distribution agreements
- TurboHercules in the EU Commission’s abuse of dominance investigation into IBM’s conduct in mainframe computing
Representative merger control cases
- Telenor in securing unconditional Phase I approval from the EU Commission for the combination of its satellite pay-TV business, Canal Digital, with Viasat Consumer, the satellite/IPTV business of Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT Group), into a new JV company. The transaction brings together the Nordic region's two satellite (DTH) pay-TV operators into a single player
- Telenor on the acquisition of a majority stake in DNA Plc, the third largest Mobile Network Operator in Finland, with activities in TV distribution and fixed broadband
- Telenor on the combination of its and TeliaSonera's Mobile Network Operators in Denmark, the first "four to three" mobile telephony transaction under Commissioner Vestager
- Telenor on the creation of two online classified joint ventures in Asia and South America
- Telenor on the sale of its mobile telecommunications assets in Russia and Ukraine to VimpelCom; its proposed merger with Telia; and on its acquisitions of various European mobile network operators, including Globul, the Bulgarian operator
- Invisio, a developer of advanced communication systems, on the merger control and national security aspects of its acquisition of Racal Acoustics, a designer and manufacturer of audio communications for high noise environments
- Graphcore, an AI processor company, on its Series E financing round
- Schlumberger, the world's leading provider of technology for reservoir characterization, drilling, production, and processing to the oil and gas industry, in its joint venture with Rockwell Automation creating the first fully integrated digital oilfield automation solutions provider, Sensia
- AVG Technologies, a developer of security software applications, in its acquisition by Avast
- Areva Transmission & Distribution in connection with its break-up acquisition by Schneider Electric and Alstom
- VTech in the investigation into its completed acquisition of LeapFrog
- Crane Co., a diversified manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products, in its acquisition of MEI Conlux Holdings, provider of unattended payment systems
- U-Shin on its acquisition of Valeo’s Vehicle Access Mechanism Business
- Exxaro Resources on the combination of its mineral sands business with Tronox
- Venture Production on the hostile takeover bid launched by Centrica
- BAE Systems on the restructuring of Airbus; the creation of a rocket propellant joint venture; and its acquisition of United Defense
- Aviva on its public bid for RAC
- Temasek on its public bid for P&O Ports
- Glaxo Wellcome on its merger with SmithKline Beecham
- H.J. Heinz on its completed acquisition of HP Foods
- Cable & Wireless on its acquisition of telecoms operator Energis
- Intu Properties plc on its joint venture with LaSalle Investment Management, acting on behalf of Greater Manchester Pension Fund and West Yorkshire Pension Fund, to jointly own the intu Chapelfield Shopping Centre in Norwich
