Biography
Niklas is a partner in Weil’s Antitrust/Competition practice and leads the Firm’s Brussels office. He has advised on some of the most high-profile and complex M&A transactions of the past decade, represented corporations on a wide range of behavioural antitrust matters, and acted as lead counsel on antitrust-related litigation and arbitration cases. He routinely represents clients before the European Commission, EU Member States’ competition/foreign investment authorities, and other key regulators globally.
Niklas is recognised as a “Rising Star” in competition by Legal 500 EMEA, as a “Rising Star” in Legal Media Group’s Expert Guides for Competition and Antitrust, and as a “Notable Practitioner” for competition by IFLR.
Representative experience:*
- Brookfield Renewable Partners in its $7.9 billion acquisition of nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric
- Eutelsat in its $3.4 billion combination with OneWeb creating a leading satellite services provider
- Microsoft in its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc., before the European Commission. This is a cross-border matter in which Weil serves as lead global antitrust counsel coordinating the regulatory process across several jurisdictions worldwide
- Brookfield in its €17.5 billion acquisition of Deutsche Telekom AG’s tower business and its $16 billion acquisition of Nielsen
- An affiliate of Lone Star Funds on the €5.2 billion sale of MBCC Group, the former BASF construction chemicals business, to Sika before the European Commission and multiple antitrust agencies globally
- NVIDIA in its then-proposed $40 billion acquisition of Arm
- Alstom in its acquisition of Bombardier Transportation and in its then-proposed €15 billion combination with Siemens. The Financial Times described it as “one of the most important test cases for the European Commission,” and “setting a political precedent that could reshape the EU’s approach to contentious mergers in strategic industries for years to come.”
- LVMH Group in its $16.2 billion acquisition of Tiffany & Co., the largest deal in the luxury industry to date
- Google in the European Commission investigation into data-related practices
- Merger control counsel to Deutsche Bank’s DWS
- Capgemini in its acquisition of Altran Technologies, creating a €17 billion IT and digital services group
- Allergan in connection with Allergan’s then-proposed $160 billion merger with Pfizer and with the industry-transforming $39 billion sale of its generic pharmaceuticals business to Teva
- LG Chem in relation to BASF’s €1.6 billion acquisition of Solvay’s nylon business
- Samsung Electronics in its $1.05 billion sale of its worldwide printer business to HP Inc
- Lafarge in connection with its €40 billion merger with Holcim, creating the world’s largest cement supplier
- Gazprom in its $2 billion asset swap with Wintershall and in a multibillion gas arbitration with a European wholesaler
- Recticel, Europe’s leading PU foam supplier, in one of the first EU cartel settlement cases
- A multinational semiconductor supplier in a European Commission abuse of dominance investigation
- Danske Statsbaner (DSB), the national Danish railway company, in successful trademark litigation before the European Court of Justice
- A leading oil & gas major in EU antitrust proceedings, including dawn raids
- A top-tier chemicals supplier in an EU investigation into alleged abuse of dominance conduct
- A major natural gas storage company on an antitrust law defense in arbitration proceedings before the German Arbitration Institute (DIS)
- A leading oil & gas company in SCC arbitration proceedings involving Articles 101 and 102 TFEU
- A global pharmaceutical company in arbitration proceedings resulting from the implementation of EU commitments following a conditional merger control approval
(*including from previous firm)