Frédéric de Bure’s practice focuses on EU and French competition law, including merger control, cartel investigations, market dominance cases and related litigation matters.

Frédéric has advised clients in complex merger control cases before the European Commission and the French Competition Authority, including the recent acquisition of Lagardère by Vivendi, the acquisition by Airbus of the commercial aircraft division of Bombardier, the Airbus/Safran joint venture and the subsequent acquisition of Arianespace. He has also represented clients in a number of international cartel/dominance investigations including several recent investigations in the technology and media sectors. His litigation experience before the European Courts in Luxembourg and the French courts includes major competition cases such as Google v. French Competition Authority, Canal+ v. French Competition Authority, Tech Data v. French Competition Authority (distribution of Apple products), Lagardère v. Odile Jacob, and Danone v. Commission.

Frédéric joined the firm in 2003 and became counsel in 2012 and partner in 2019. From 2003 to 2008, he was resident in the Brussels office.

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Notable Experience

  • Vivendi in the acquisition of the sole control of Lagardère, approved in Phase 2 with commitments by the European Commission.

  • Canal+ Group in connection with a number of abuse of dominance cases regarding the awards of sports rights, and related litigations.

  • Tech Data before the FCA in a high-profile investigation regarding the distribution of Apple product and the subsequent litigations.

  • Google in the context of several abuse of dominance cases before the French Competition Authority and the French Courts.

  • Whirlpool in the context of an investigation of the French Competition Authority into the French major and small appliances sectors.

  • Airbus in a wide range of merger control matters, including the acquisition of the commercial aircraft division of Bombardier and the purchase of Arianespace, Europe’s space launch services provider, by Airbus Safran Launchers (now Arianegroup).

  • Hachette Livre in the context of the European Commission’s investigation into “most favored nation” clauses and Amazon’s e-book distribution deals with various publishers.

  • HPE in the context of an abuse of dominance investigation of the French Competition Authority into the maintenance of servers and storage systems.

  • Lagardère before the European Court of Justice in the litigation against rival publisher Odile Jacob to secure the acquisition of Vivendi Universal Publishing.

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