Peter Rowland

Of Counsel

Brussels

Peter is an Of Counsel in the Competition, Regulation and Trade team at Herbert Smith Freehills, based in Brussels.

Peter is an Of Counsel with over 15 years' experience advising international clients on all aspects of EU and UK competition law, in particular merger control (M&A and joint ventures), cartel investigations, market investigations, horizontal and vertical agreements, and compliance programmes. He is dual-qualified in both Belgium (Advocaat, Brussels Bar) and England & Wales (Solicitor).

With over 15 years of experience of dealing with a broad range of multi-jurisdictional competition cases in London and Brussels, Peter combines strong technical expertise with ‘can do’ business-focused advice. He is recognised as a "Future Leader" in Who's Who Legal (2021), and a "Rising Star" in The Legal 500 EMEA (2021).

Peter regularly speaks at conferences on competition law developments and contributes to thought leadership, including speaking at the Informa Pharmaceutical Law Academy and IP Summer School at the University of Cambridge. He is a co-editor of the mergers chapter of the Sweet & Maxwell EU Competition Law Handbook, co-editor of the EU chapter of Lexology Competition in Digital Markets, and a regular contributor to the HSF Notes competition blog.

Background

Education:

Clare College, Cambridge University (BA, Law)
Elizabeth College, Guernsey

Experience & expertise

Selected matters

Synthomer on the competition aspects of its $824 million acquisition of American company OMNOVA Solutions, securing conditional clearance from the European Commission in Phase I
Uber on the merger control aspects of its acquisition of Careem, a Middle Eastern mobility, delivery, and payments operator, including coordinating merger filings and obtaining clearances in several jurisdictions in the wider Middle-East
Sky on its £22 billion acquisition by Comcast, competing bid by 21 Century Fox, as well as previous acquisitions by Sky including of Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia
Google on various abuse of dominance investigations by the European Commission, and subsequent appeals
Lonmin on the merger control aspects of its takeover by rival mining company, Sibanye-Stillwater