Marcus Pollard

Marcus is a partner in our Antitrust and Foreign Investment Group, based in Hong Kong. He was named Antitrust Lawyer of the Year (Under 40) by Global Competition Review in 2021.

He regularly advises on regional antitrust investigations, compliance, multi-jurisdictional merger control and foreign investment matters, focussing on assisting multinational and Asia-based clients. He has extensive experience advising on antitrust matters before the Hong Kong Competition Commission and agencies in competition regimes across Southeast Asia.

Marcus has taken a lead in merger control and foreign investment aspects of Asian and global transactions, including advising on transaction structure and handling complex merger and foreign investment filings.  

Marcus has a wide range of experience based on his work in both Europe and Asia, as well as being a former in-house lawyer at the Hong Kong Competition Commission. Prior to moving to Asia, he was based in Brussels and Beijing and worked on a range of global merger, cartel and antitrust matters, including investigations with complex remedy/commitment processes in the EU and China, leniency applications, and multi-national litigation.

He has experience working with clients in several industries, including the financial services, healthcare, IT, telecommunications, food & beverage, and retail sectors. He regularly supports financial sponsors in their investments across the region.

Marcus is recognised by legal directories with clients praising him as “one of the pioneers of Hong Kong’s competition ordinance” on Who’s Who Legal and that “Marcus’ advice is always practical and reliable, and above all, he can understand and think from clients’ perspectives” on Legal 500.

Work highlights

Marcus has extensive experience advising on cartel and dominance investigations in Hong Kong, as well as antitrust litigation before the Competition Tribunal. Notable precedent-setting cases include advising on:

• the first resale price maintenance case brought to the Tribunal.
• the first abuse of dominance investigation and competition proceedings in the Tribunal.
• the first cartel prosecution and competition proceedings brought to the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, which involved the first-ever dawn raid in Hong Kong.

Marcus has been a key adviser in many significant regional merger control and foreign investment matters. These include advising:

• Charoen Pokphand Group on the US$10.6bn acquisition of Tesco’s businesses in Thailand and Malaysia, the biggest corporate acquisition in Thailand’s history and the largest M&A in Asia in 2020.
• Intel Corporation on its US$9bn divestment of its NAND business to SK Hynix. Shortlisted as Merger control matter of the year – APAC, ME and Africa by GCR Awards 2022.
• True Corporation on its US$8.6bn mega-merger with Total Access Communication Plc (DTAC). It is set to be a market-changing transaction bringing together two of the three Thai mobile network operators. Shortlisted as Merger control matter of the year – APAC, ME and Africa by GCR Awards 2022.
• Kerry Group on the US$2.3bn sale of control to SF Holding. It involves the combination of two leading logistics operators, creating Asia’s largest logistics group.

He regularly publishes and speaks at major conferences, including on competition law and policy in Asia. His major publications include:

• Marcus Pollard and Kathleen Gooi, Getting the Deal Through: Cartel Regulation 2023 – Hong Kong, 28 November 2022
• Marcus Pollard and Kathleen Gooi, Getting the Deal Through: Cartel Regulation 2022 – Hong Kong, 7 December 2021
• Marcus Pollard, Kathleen Gooi, Jackie Lau and Joshua Chan, Competition Laws Outside the United States, Third Edition, The American Bar Association, 21 July 2020
• Marcus Pollard and Kathleen Gooi, Getting the Deal Through: Cartel Regulation 2021 – Hong Kong, 10 December 2020
• Marcus Pollard and Kathleen Gooi, "Work in Progress: Hong Kong’s Competition Law Five Years On", Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, 29 September 2020
• Marcus Pollard, "Great Expectations – The First Year of Hong Kong’s Competition Law Enforcement", Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, Volume 8, Issue 2, 25 February 2017
• Getting the Deal Through, Vertical Agreements 2017 – Hong Kong, 2017
• Marcus Pollard, "More than a cookie cutter: the global influence of European competition law", Journal of European Competition Law & Practice, Volume 5, Issue 6, 1 June 2014

Marcus studied Law (with Law Studies in Europe) at St John’s College, Oxford University and Leiden University. He holds a LLM in European Law from the College of Europe (Bruges).