Cambridge Forum on European Competition Litigation

Jolling specialises in European and Dutch Competition Law. Jolling’s previous experience in mergers and acquisitions strongly enhances his current practice, particularly his representing companies in international cartel investigations, cartel damages litigation and in merger cases. Jolling advises major Dutch and international companies on their domestic and international competition issues. Jolling has wide experience in conducting internal investigations, coordinating the defence in international cartel cases and handling multijurisdictional filings. He also regularly appears as a litigator before the European Court of Justice and national courts. He acts for defendants and corporate clients in civil cartel damage cases.

Dr. Thomas G. Funke is the co-head of the competition practice at Osborne Clarke. He advises on antitrust litigation, cartel investigations and digital antitrust.

The European Commission retained Thomas to defend its E.ON/Innogy and RWE/E.ON merger clearances against sixteen third-party challenges in the General Court of the European Union. In the European Court of Justice and the German Supreme Court, Thomas secured decisions in Hydrogen Peroxide (C-352/13), Akzo v Commission (T-345/12), CDC v Commission (T-437/08) and the BGH Coffee Roaster litigation. He supported Microsoft in high-stakes damages litigation and represents Deutsche Bahn in one of the largest German follow-on actions against the members of the European trucks cartel.

Thomas successfully defended industry leaders in European Commission cartel investigations, including a global automotive component supplier, a leading German retail group, an online payments provider and a digital champion from North America. Thomas also represented leniency recipients and negotiated settlements with the Bundeskartellamt. He has published on the EU block exemptions, antitrust procedure, energy regulation, vertical restraints, merger control and digital antitrust.

“A great antitrust litigator and a pre-eminent figure in European cartel investigations” (WWL)

Before being called to the Bar in 2018, Jon was a partner for 25 years at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, led the antitrust litigation team at that firm for many years, and participated and advised on in the co-ordination of the international defence of many of the major cartels uncovered in the last 20 years. His expertise ranges from advising on the making of immunity applications, attending dawn raids and advising on strategy in those pressurised situations, assisting in the defence of regulatory proceedings at European and national authority level, and addressing issues and risks relating to increasingly common national court damages claims. He has acted in many of the major UK competition litigation proceedings, particularly damages claims, of the last 15 years.

Robin is a Partner at Oxera with more than 15 years’ experience, specialising in competition economics and quantifying damages. He leads Oxera’s work on disputes and damages quantification as co-chair of its Litigation and Arbitration practice. He led the Oxera team that worked on the 2009 study commissioned by the European Commission to set out the methods used to quantify antitrust damages; this study formed the basis of the Commission’s own guidance to national courts in 2013. He has provided training to judges and lawyers from various EU member states on competition economics. He has a wide range of experience in competition-related disputes, mergers, and abuse of dominance investigations, working on cases in the UK, Ireland, the USA, the Netherlands and Germany. He has acted for both claimants/applicants and defendants/respondents in these matters. Robin has worked on more than 40 damages quantification cases. In particular, he was the testifying expert in the UK’s first application for a class action: Dorothy Gibson vs Pride Mobility, in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. He is listed in The International Who’s Who of Competition Lawyers & Economists. Robin has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Global Competition Litigation Review and the Competition Law Journal, and has acted as a reviewer for articles in the Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences and the Journal of Antitrust Enforcement.

David currently leads Microsoft’s global competition litigation matters. Prior to assuming this role in October of 2023, David led Microsoft’s global M&A regulatory and competition work, including oversight of Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Inc., which has involved regulatory processes in more than a dozen jurisdictions, extensive proceedings in the UK and EC, and a preliminary injunction trial and appeal against the Federal Trade Commission in the US.

David has over 30 years of antitrust regulatory and litigation experience spread across government, law firm and in-house positions, primarily in the areas of technology, telecommunications, media, and entertainment. Before joining Microsoft in September 2021, David spent five years at AT&T, where he worked on a variety of M&A matters and antitrust investigations, including the regulatory review, litigation, trial and appeal in U.S. v. AT&T, Inc. and Time Warner, Inc.

Previously, David was a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and a Shareholder at Heller Ehrman LLP, representing clients in antitrust litigation and regulatory matters in the technology, telecommunications, retail products and oil/gas industries. David began his career in the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, and spent much of the 1990s managing merger and civil conduct investigations and litigation, including cross-border matters like Worldcom/Sprint and Worldcom/MCI.

Shlayane holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology from Carleton University in Ottawa, ON. 

Prior to joining the Cambridge team, she has developed a robust expertise in the event industry having orchestrated a diverse range of events from intimate gatherings to large-scale corporate functions. Shlay has successfully managed events for clients such as Fashion Bomb Daily, SickKids, Pinterest, and more showcasing her ability to handle complex logistics and creative challenges with ease. 

Outside of the office, Shlay enjoys spin class, reading by the beach, and endless karaoke nights with her family.