Fiona Carlin
Biography
Fiona Carlin is the head of the EU Competition & Regulatory Affairs Practice in Brussels. She is the former chief executive of Baker McKenzie's EMEA region and the former chair of the Firm's Global Competition and Antitrust Law Practice comprising more than 320 lawyers in over 40 countries. She has remained an active practitioner throughout her various leadership roles with a particular focus on regulated industries.
Fiona was a founding and long-standing member of Baker McKenzie's Global Diversity & Inclusion Committee and is dedicated to creating an inclusive high-performance culture where the talent of our lawyers and business professionals can flourish.
Fiona has been listed in "The International Who's Who of Competition Lawyers" since 2009 where she features as a Thought Leader. She is also among Global Competition Review's Top 100 Women in Antitrust, and Chambers quotes clients praising her "legal and pragmatic advice" and describing her as "globally minded."
Practice Focus
Fiona advises clients on a wide range of competition law issues, including merger control, the structuring of distribution networks, state aid grants, compliance programmes and the defence of clients involved in competition investigations up to the appeal stage before the European courts in Luxembourg. Her focus is predominantly on the life sciences, consumer goods and industrials segments.
Fiona has a stellar success rate before the European courts in competition and state aid cases.
She has served as key adviser to the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations ever since the European Commission's pharmaceutical sector inquiry was launched in 2007.
Representative Legal Matters
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Advised on many cross-border transactions requiring multiple national merger control and foreign investment filings.
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Advised on numerous high-profile merger cases involving in-depth investigations by the European Commission, the UK CMA, and the negotiation of remedies in the medical device, supermarket and mining sectors.
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Assisted FedEx, leading the legal and economics teams that successfully thwarted the attempted acquisition by parcel courier service giant UPS of its rival TNT. Subsequently, led the team that obtained global unconditional clearance of FedEx's successful bid for TNT in 20 jurisdictions.
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Advised the former American Standard Group of companies in the bathroom cartels case in which the EU General Court annulled fines of EUR 205 million and overturned a European Commission state aid decision entitling Hungarian energy incumbent MOL to repayments of more than EUR 100 million.
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Advised the Hungarian energy company MOL in defeating a USD 17 billion hostile takeover bid by Austrian energy company OMV. OMV withdrew its bid due to the value-destructive remedies required to solve the multiple competition law problems identified by MOL.
Professional Honors
- Listed lawyer, "The International Who's Who of Competition Lawyers," Since 2009
- Listed lawyer, Global Competition Review's Top 100 Women in Antitrust
- Global D&I Award, "Global Competition Review," 2019
Corporate Responsibility
- European advisory board chair of Catalyst, a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding opportunities for women in business
- Partner sponsor of a global pro bono project that has mapped the laws protecting victims of domestic violence in more than 80 countries
Admissions
- Brussels~Belgium (1993)
- Northern Ireland (1992)
Education
- INSEAD Business School (International Directors Programme) (2021)
- King's College London (Diploma in UK and European Copyright Law) (2000)
- College of Europe (Diploma in Advanced European Studies) (1989)
- Queen's University Belfast (LLB) (1988)
Languages
- English
- French
- Italian