Annamaria Mangiaracina

Annamaria is a senior competition lawyer with considerable experience representing clients in international merger control, FDI, cartel investigations and litigation matters in a wide range of industries, with a focus on the energy, financial sponsors, healthcare, telecommunications and FMG sectors. She has acted before a wide range of regulators in and outside Europe, and conducted proceedings in English, French and Italian.

She co-heads the firmwide Global Healthcare Sector, spearheading client initiatives and more widely the direction of travel of the Firm.

Praised for her “outstanding communication and client-handling abilities”, Annamaria was ranked among the “40 under 40” top antitrust practitioners worldwide (Global Competition Review) and as one of the top female M&A lawyers in EMEA.

In 2017, she was seconded for three months to a major client as acting general counsel for competition, providing strategic advice, and leading a team of competition lawyers in a wide range of business-critical matters.

Work highlights

Annamaria has led or co-led on some of the most challenging global transactions, including securing merger control clearances and FDI authorisations in various jurisdictions for:

• Cerberus on the sale of its controlling interests in Worldwide Flight Services to SATS, a Temasek’s group company
• Johnson & Johnson in obtaining merger control clearances (ex-US) for its $16.6bn acquisition of Abiomed
• Vodafone on the acquisition of joint control over INWIT, conditionally cleared by the European Commission in Phase I
• Novartis on its strategic asset swap with GSK, involving obtaining Phase I clearance for its $16bn acquisition of GSK’s oncology unit subject to a set of very innovative remedies (GCR Matter of the Year, FT Innovative Lawyers’ Award)
• Intel Corporation on its US$17bn acquisition of Altera's field-programmable gate array technology
• Eni on global merger control issues resulting from its US$2.8bn sale of its 25% stake in Mozambique liquefied natural gas project
• Vodafone on the Phase II investigation in relation to its standalone m-commerce JV with Telefonica and Everything Everywhere
• British American Tobacco in its 2008 acquisition of Skandinavisk Tobakskompagni, conditionally cleared in Phase I

Her work on behavioural competition and litigation includes representing and assisting:

• Vodafone before the General Court in Luxembourg to defend the validity of a European Commission’s merger clearance decision
• the immunity applicant in the auto-part cartel before the European Commission and in all subsequent related damages claims in Europe, in what has been cited as the “largest cartel investigation in history”
• a global financial institution on the European Commission’s power cables investigation and subsequent appeal to the European Courts in relation to issues around parent company liability
• a large global tech player on compliance with the European Commission’s decision finding an infringement of Article 102 (abuse of dominance)
• a major FMG manufacturer on global antitrust matters, ranging from abuse of dominance to distribution questions and global merger control issues
• a European cosmetic manufacturer in relation to cartel proceedings before the Italian Antitrust Authority and subsequent litigation before the Italian Courts

Annamaria regularly publishes and speaks at major industry conferences on topics of high relevance for clients, such as the interplay between sustainability and competition law or the increasing level of scrutiny in the merger world.

Examples include:

• “Antitrust: Creativity or sound factual and economic grounding: dynamic approaches to market definition and shares in the digital realm”, GCR Live: Law Leaders Global Conference, Miami, January 2024.
• “Crucial developments to European data and privacy in merger control”, Global Competition Review, Digital Markets Guide – Third Edition, 8 December 2023, with Gerwin van Gerven, Will Leslie, Lodewick Prompers.
• “Strategies to address common challenges in the pharma sector”, Annual competition law in the pharmaceutical sector conference, Brussels, December 2023.
• “Convergence and divergence between the EU and the UK in competition enforcement and policy”, Britcham, Brussels, December 2023.
• “Competition law and sustainability collaborations – green shoots?”, Lexology and GCR webinar, November 2023.
• “From no-poach to sophisticated remedies: the latest theories of harm in antitrust and merger control”, Lear Competition Festival, Rome, September 2023.
• “Merger trends in the technology, media and telecommunications sectors: what are the latest developments?”, 32^nd Annual IBA Communications and Competition law conference, Rome, April 2023.
  
  
  

Annamaria studied law at L.U.I.S.S. Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy and holds a master’s in European business law from Nijmegen University, The Netherlands.

She speaks English, Italian and French.