Biography
Chris Thomas is counsel in Weil’s Antitrust/Competition practice, where he advises on all aspects of EU and UK competition law, including merger control, restrictive practices, market dominance and general counselling and compliance.
Chris’ experience encompasses a broad range of industries, including technology and digital markets, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, financial services, media, consumer goods, chemicals, industrial/manufacturing, IP/IT, aviation, and energy. Prior to joining Weil, Chris trained in the London office of another US law firm, before spending over two years working on competition matters in their Brussels office.
Chris was described in the 2024 Legal 500 rankings as an “extremely strong operator and incredibly responsive. Meticulous on the detail but still retains a strong grasp of the big picture”.
Experience:
- Brookfield Renewable Partners on its joint $7.9 billion acquisition with Cameco Corporation of nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric Company.
- Advent International on the carve-out sale of Tag (part of the Williams Lea Tag group) to Dentsu.
- Brookfield’s real estate private funds on the £3.3 billion sale of Student Roost to GIC and Greystar.
- CPP Investments on the $12.5 billion acquisition by CPP Investments and Silver Lake of Qualtrics, a provider of experience management software.
- Generation Investment Management on its investment in Octopus Energy.
- Advent International on its acquisition of the IRCA Group and subsequent acquisitions of Anastasi, Cesarin, and the €500m acquisition of the sweet ingredients business of Kerry Group.
- Advent International and NielsenIQ on NielsenIQ’s combination with GfK.
- American Securities and its portfolio company, Emerald Kalama Chemical, LLC, a manufacturer and supplier of food and beverage preservatives, flavor and fragrance intermediates, and other additives, in the antitrust aspects of Emerald’s $1.1 billion sale to LANXESS AG (Germany), a developer, manufacturer and marketer of chemical intermediates, additives, specialty chemicals and plastics.
- Brookfield on its €17.5 billion acquisition of Deutsche Telekom AG’s tower business.
- Eurazeo and Advent International’s acquisition of Planet Payment and subsequent Planet Payment acquisitions including of Proximis, Datatrans, protel Hotelsoftware and Hoist Group.
- Brookfield on its $16 billion acquisition of Nielsen.
- Permira and Advent International’s proposed $14bn acquisition of McAfee.
- Advent International and GIC’s proposed $8bn bid for SOBI.
- Maxim Integrated in its $20.8 billion sale to Analog Devices.
- Cobham (a portfolio company of Advent International) on the carve out and sale of a number of its business divisions to strategic acquirers.
- Brookfield in its creation of a joint venture with Digital Realty to develop and operate data centres in India.
- Advent International on its acquisition of a controlling stake in Aareon AG, a provider of housing management software.
- Simon Property Group and Brookfield Property Partners’ acquisition of US department store chain J.C. Penney.
- Leading payments provider in securing informal clearance from the CMA relating to a strategic acquisition of a competitor.
- Global pharmaceutical company in securing informal clearance from the CMA relating to a $1billion acquisition of a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company.
- Confidential mandate for an industrial manufacturing client in relation to the pursuit of an abuse of dominance complaint against a rival manufacturer.
- Confidential mandates for a US headquartered consumer electronics business relating to a number of early-stage investigations by the European Commission into alleged Article 102 infringements.
- Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan on merger control filings relating to its acquisition of Logoplaste Group.