Speakers

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  Rebecca H. Farrington

  Partner, White & Case

  Rebecca is a partner at White & Case based in their Washington DC office. Clients describe her as being “extremely pragmatic” with the ability to “provide good market context and communications in a way that clients can easily navigate.” Rebecca has been recognised as “Retail, Consumer, Food & Beverage Dealmaker of the Year” by The Deal — Best of the Middle Market Awards for 2020, “Best in Antitrust/Competition” by Euromoney LMG Americas for 2019 and is nationally ranked as one of nine “Leading Lawyers” by Legal 500 US for 2021. Her practice focuses on government merger and non-merger investigations, private antitrust litigation, and counselling on antitrust issues.

  Rebecca has developed a significant track record defending proposed and consummated mergers before the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. Clients she has assisted have operated in a broad spectrum of industries, including healthcare, food products, aviation, petroleum, coal, broadcasting, gaming, software, hardware, industrial products, energy, mining and retail sales. She has also successfully defended non-merger investigations, including investigations of alleged market allocation and violations of Section 8 of the Clayton Act, and has advocated for government intervention on behalf of parties adversely impacted by proposed mergers, or by anticompetitive conduct.

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  Kirstie Nicholson

  Competition Counsel, BHP

  Kirstie Nicholson is Competition Counsel at BHP. Based in Singapore, Kirstie advises clients located across the entire BHP group on the full range of competition law matters, including merger control and investigations as well as day to day counselling. Before joining BHP, Kirstie spent over a decade in private practice as a competition law specialist with international law firms in London, Brussels, Shanghai and Singapore, giving her broad experience of competition law policy and enforcement. She was involved in a number of the leading cases on the application of European competition law to the maritime industry and in 2008 was among the first European competition lawyers to relocate to China to assist clients with aspects of the developing competition laws in Asia.

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  David Gustman

  Partner, Freeborn & Peters LLP

  David Gustman is a member and former head of Freeborn & Peter’s Litigation Practice Group, Co-head of the Firm’s Antitrust Practice Group and a member and former Chairman of the Firm’s Executive Committee.

  For over 40 years he has represented numerous international mining and natural resource clients. David has handled and served as lead trial counsel on a variety of complex business litigation matters involving antitrust, accounting, banking, bankruptcy, construction, finance, insurance coverage and broker disputes, mining, real estate and securities. He is a “go to” lawyer for the Firm’s most challenging and difficult cases and is often called upon by clients to take over cases that have been previously handled by other counsel.

  David provides antitrust counsel to joint ventures, trade associations, research consortiums and mining and other companies involved in mergers and acquisitions, as well as those facing or seeking to prevent antitrust claims. He has also successfully defended mining clients in connection with criminal antitrust investigations by the U.S. Department of Justice. He is a frequent speaker and author on various legal topics, including antitrust, class actions and mergers. He has spoken several times at the PLI’s Annual Antitrust Law Institute. He also co-authored a paper entitled Joint Ventures and Other Competitor Collaborations, published by the PLI Law Institute.

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  Axel P. Schulz

  Executive Partner, White & Case

  Axel is the Executive Partner of White & Case’s Brussels office. He supports clients in a broad range of German and European Commission competition law matters.

  Axel’s significant track record includes a number of high-profile competition cases, such as ‘Toshiba v. Commission’ – in which the General Court of the European Union annulled in full the €90.9 million fine imposed on Toshiba by the European Commission, for its alleged participation in the Gas Insulated Switchgear cartel. He also worked on Toshiba’s Cathode Ray Tube appeal, as well as the oral hearings in T-113/07 before the European Court of Justice, and the Transformers (Case COMP/39.129) hearing before the General Court.

  Axel offers clients the benefit of his significant experience in competition law, having handled merger control cases involving collective dominance and countervailing buyer power, as well as structural links issues in industries including aluminum, paper, energy, automotive, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.