Michael Grenfell
Partner
Michael Grenfell is a competition lawyer based in London. He specialises in all aspects of competition (antitrust), regulatory and EU law. Michael has more than 20 years’ experience as a competition lawyer, and has been a partner since 1998.
Michael has extensive experience in all aspects of EU and UK law relating to competition (antitrust). This includes merger control for public takeovers, private acquisition and joint ventures; investigations into alleged anti-competitive agreements, cartels, and abuse of dominance; monopoly and sector investigations; competition litigation and disputes in the courts; compliance with EU competition rules and the UK Competition Act and Enterprise Act.
Michael also advises on EU state aid rules, public procurement and utility procurement law, EU “free movement” rules (including restrictions on shareholdings in privatised companies), and sector and utility regulation. This includes telecoms and electronic communications, railways, water and energy (gas and electricity). He is on the legal panel of two of the UK sector regulators.
Michael Grenfell is a recommended competition lawyer in PLC’s “Which Lawyer?” Year Book.
He is consistently recommended in the Chambers and Legal 500 directories:
Chambers Global (2011) says that he receives “high praise, with market sources describing him as ‘a very impressive lawyer who will bend over backwards to deliver what the client wants’”.
Chambers UK (2011) quotes clients as saying he “adapts to our needs and has the ability to make plain what the enquiring authority is seeking”.
The Legal 500 (2010) describes him as “well connected”, “client focused”, “very knowledgeable”.
Michael has experience working inside the competition authorities, having spent 18 months on secondment in the competition policy division of the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry. He currently chairs the Working Group on UK competition law reforms of the City of London Law Society.
Michael is co-author of Coleman and Grenfell on the Competition Act published by Oxford University Press; and of the UK section of Merger Control in the United Kingdom and European Union by Riccardo Celli and Michael Grenfell (Kluwer Law International). He has also written articles in The Times, Financial News, City AM and various competition and regulatory law journals. Michael has been interviewed on competition matters on BBC TV and radio (including Radio 4's Today programme), CNN, the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist and other news media. He is a frequent speaker at conferences on competition, regulatory, telecoms and railway matters.
Michael has an M.A. (Hons.) in history and law at the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D in political theory at the London School of Economics. He is married with two young sons, and lives in London.