Ola McLees

Ola's practice focuses on EU and UK competition law. She regularly represents clients in competition matters before the European Commission (EC) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). She regularly advises on multijurisdictional and EU merger control (notifications and third-party complaints). She also supports clients in understanding regulatory and legislative developments, competition compliance, and engages with regulators in behavioural and market investigations.

Ola has advised global companies in various sectors, including accounting, banking, digital technologies, industrial equipment, manufacturing, media, medical devices, music streaming and pharmaceuticals. She has also acted for clients in litigation before the General Court of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to challenge European Commission decisions.

• Assisted with conducting competitive and filing assessments and preparing transaction documentation and client briefs for multijurisdictional M&A for submission to the EC.
• Represented market participants in preparing submissions in response to EC and CMA market investigations, and a third-party submission in response to EC and CMA Phase I and Phase II investigations.
• Advised on the impact of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), in particular by conducting designation, notification and compliance assessments, and engaged with EU competition regulators on gatekeeper designation and compliance with the regulation.
• Assisted with reviewing draft contracts and preparing advice in the context of evolving EU competition regulatory regimes and, in particular, in light of the changes to the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER).
• Provided strategic advice on the EU audit reform, in particular recommending the extent of engagement with the EC and toward reaching common positions within business associations with respect to submissions in response to ongoing consultations.
• Conducted legal and case law research, drafted submissions and prepared responses to client queries for a non-preferential origin case in the General Court of the European Court of Justice.
• Drafted and submitted Binding Tariff Information and Binding Origin Information applications to UK and EU regulators and, in cases of revocation, prepared extended reliance applications.
• Supported internal and regulatory investigations into issues of resale price maintenance, territorial/customer/online resale restrictions, cartels and abuse of dominance in the EU and the UK.
• Prepared leniency applications for cartel behaviour as part of EC and CMA investigations and supported interaction with regulators.
• Drafted submissions in response to EC and CMA consultations, in particular on the UK and EU VBER consultations, and the UK digital markets consultation on behalf of individual clients and business associations.