Biography
Nafees Saeed is a partner in Weil’s Antitrust practice, where he advises on all aspects of EU and UK competition law, including merger control, cartel investigations, restrictive practices, market dominance, and sector inquiries.
Nafees has extensive experience of representing clients before global competition regulators in Asia, Australia, Africa and South America.
Nafees’ experience encompasses a broad range of industries, including technology and digital markets, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, financial services, media, telecommunications, IP/IT, consumer goods, sports, aviation, energy, chemicals, and industrial/manufacturing sectors.
Nafees recently completed an extended secondment to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority. During this secondment Nafees held the position of Director in the agency’s Mergers division and was responsible for leading a number of key Phase I and Phase II merger investigations.
Experience:
- Representing Microsoft in its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc., a leading publisher of popular PC, console and mobile games. This is a cross-border matter in which Weil serves as lead global antitrust counsel coordinating the regulatory process across several jurisdictions worldwide.
- Meta Platforms (f/k/a Facebook) in its $1 billion acquisition of Kustomer, a customer relationship management (CRM) company.
- Represented 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 in $16 billion acquisition of Nielsen.
- Permira and Advent International’s proposed $14bn acquisition of MacAfee
- Advent International and GIC’s proposed $8bn bid for SOBI
- Advent International portfolio company Cobham Limited in the sale of its air-to-air refueling business to Eaton Aerospace
- Represented Brookfield Asset Management Inc. in its approximately $4.8 billion acquisition of a 61.2% stake in Oaktree Capital Group, LLC.
- Represented Advent International on a range of transactions
- Depop and its selling shareholders on the sale of the company to Etsy for $1.625 billion
- Represented a leading global payments provider in securing clearance from the CMA relating to a strategic acquisition of a competitor
- Bain Capital’s $4 billion acquisition of the Kantar business of WPP plc
- Iron Mountain in the UK review of its $2 billion acquisition of Recall Holdings, a competing supplier of records management services, securing conditional clearance after a Phase II investigation
- Lenovo in its $2.9 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google, a combination of global suppliers of smart mobile devices
- Universal Music Group’s in the European Commission’s review of £1.2 billion acquisition of EMI, securing conditional clearance after a Phase II investigation
- Johnson & Johnson in the UK review of its sale of its personal lubricants business to Reckitt Benckiser, securing conditional clearance after a Phase II investigation
- Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC in its $4.6 billion sale of substantially all of its global business to Brookfield Business Partners L.P.
- HNA Group Co. Ltd in its CHF 2.73 billion acquisition of Swissport’s airport ground-handling business.
- L’Oréal USA in its $1.3 billion acquisition of the CeraVe, AcneFree and AMBI skincare product brands from Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc, and its acquisition of NYX Cosmetics
Firm News & Announcements, Latest Thinking
Firm News & Announcements
- Weil Advises General Atlantic’s BeyondNetZero Fund on Investment in GRESB Deal Brief — April 19, 2024
- Weil’s Antitrust Excellence Recognized as Microsoft/Activision Deal Wins Three Honors at GCR Awards 2024 Firm Announcement — April 10, 2024
Latest Thinking
- You Can Bank on It: Enforcing against Unlawful Information Exchange Remains Top of Antitrust Regulators’ Agenda Alert — Antitrust — By Nafees Saeed, Bella Spring and Chris Thomas — PDF — August 2024
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Navigating Large-Scale Document Productions in Global Merger Reviews
Blog Post — WorthWeil Antitrust Blog
— By
Neil Rigby,
Nafees Saeed,
Bella Spring and
Venetia Hudd
— June 28, 2024
In this post, we have teamed up with colleagues at FTI Consulting to highlight our top five issues to consider when navigating the complexities of document production in parallel merger processes. Planning this work stream ahead of engagement with the regulators may help to avoid procedural pitfalls and minimize unnecessary delays to a transaction timetable. ...
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WorthWeil By The Numbers: Closing Your Complex Global Deal
Blog Post — WorthWeil Antitrust Blog
— By
Nafees Saeed,
Bella Spring and
Chris Thomas
— May 21, 2024
Amid all the talk about increasing regulatory scrutiny of global deals, what do the numbers tell us about the chances of successfully closing a complex global deal and how long this is likely to take? Which sectors and which competitive harms are attracting the most scrutiny? ...
- EU / UK Update: Sustainability & ESG - Making Greener Choices: Growing the Role of Sustainability in Global Merger Reviews Alert — By Nafees Saeed, Kristin Sanford, Bella Spring and Clémence Coppin — PDF — April 2024
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Making Greener Choices: Growing the Role of Sustainability in Global Merger Reviews
Blog Post — WorthWeil Antitrust Blog
— By
Nafees Saeed,
Kristin Sanford,
Bella Spring and
Clémence Coppin
— April 02, 2024
With growing demand for greener choices, environmental sustainability considerations are playing a more important role in merger reviews. What are the practical takeaways for global deal strategy and timing? ...