International Competition & Trade (Presented by Troutman Pepper Locke)

Barbara T. Sicalides | Troutman Pepper Locke

Barbara’s practice covers the full range of antitrust and competition matters. She routinely handles antitrust litigation, conduct and merger investigations, and counseling, as well as distribution disputes and arrangements, for domestic and international companies.

Her antitrust litigation experience includes a wide range of antitrust claims, such as class action and individual plaintiff actions. Additionally, this experience includes actions challenging agreements among competitors such as price fixing, customer allocation, output restraints, and other similar horizontal agreements, as well as monopolization and claims challenging exclusionary conduct or agreements. She has also defended clients facing price discrimination, overlapping director, and numerous state statutory and common law unfair competition claims.

She has extensive experience responding to government investigations of alleged cartel activity, including price-fixing and market allocation. Most recently, she represented a successful applicant under the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Lenience Program, as well as other nonpublic criminal investigations.

Barbara advises clients on acquisitions and joint venture transactions before the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, state attorneys general, and international regulatory agencies. She is also experienced in non-merger civil and criminal antitrust investigations before the enforcement agencies, and defends against antitrust class actions and individual claims. Her counseling practice also involves helping international and domestic companies to minimize or avoid antitrust liability, and to implement effective compliance programs.

Daniel N. Anziska| Troutman Pepper Locke

Dan solves antitrust and related regulatory issues for businesses in the construction, modeling, sports, financial services, publishing, energy, retail, and health care industries. He collaborates with businesses on planning strategic acquisitions in concentrated markets, structuring joint ventures and other collaborations, advocating before enforcement agencies (DOJ, the FTC, and State AGs), and litigating complex antitrust cases in federal courts across the nation.

Utilizing his knowledge of markets and trade policy and dynamics, Dan similarly assists businesses with navigating trade and supply chain issues, including foreign direct investment (CFIUS), export controls (EAR) and tariffs, duties, and trade sanctions.

Renewable energy developers, electric vehicle manufacturers, and battery supply chain companies involved in the electrification ecosystem across the U.S. rely on Dan to navigate complex regulatory and policy matters to help develop a robust domestic green energy infrastructure.

Davit Akman| Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP

Davit Akman serves as Chair of the firm’s Competition & Foreign Investment Group. A leader in his field, he advises market-leading domestic and international firms on all aspects of Canadian competition and foreign investment review law, including mergers & acquisitions, cartels and other criminal matters, private actions (including class actions), advertising and marketing practices, abuse of dominance and other reviewable trade practices.

Davit has cleared major multi-jurisdictional and domestic mergers in a wide array of industry sectors and advises non-Canadian investors (including state owned enterprises (SOEs)) on Canadian foreign investment issues under the Investment Canada Act (ICA) and other federal legislation and policies. He is a market leader in advising Canadian and foreign-owned mining companies as well as SOEs with respect to the Government of Canada’s October 2022 Policy Regarding Foreign Investments from State-Owned Enterprises in Critical Minerals under the ICA.

Davit has also served as counsel in a number of Canada’s most important competition litigation cases, including matters before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Canadian Competition Tribunal.

Gerrit Oosterhuis | Houthoff

Gerrit heads the Brussels office of Houthoff. He advises on Dutch and EU competition law as well as foreign direct investment screening (FDI). Gerrit’s competition law practice encompasses merger notifications, cartel investigations and stand-alone competition litigation as well as the international coordination of such practices. He also advises on complex behavioural practices such as distribution systems, creating joint ventures and compliance programs. In the field of investment screening, Gerrit has been involved in the most complex high tech cases in the Netherlands and regularly coordinates multijurisdictional filings. Gerrit represents clients from a wide range of sectors, specifically high tech, energy and food.

I. Key developments in international antitrust/competition enforcement | 10:55am – 11:25am

II. Rising national security and trade-regulation scrutiny impacting cross-border deals | 11:25am – 11:55am

III. How to navigate these enforcement trends when evaluating transaction opportunities | 11:55am – 12:25pm