For the last 20 years or so, Christopher Thomas has been helping clients caught up in European Commission investigations of alleged cartels and abuse of dominance, and successfully navigating the EU and national merger control process. These days, defending clients' interests also means coordinating competition law investigations across Europe and globally, which is what Christopher does in close cooperation with his colleagues in Washington, D.C., Beijing and elsewhere. Christopher also appears regularly as an advocate before the General Court and the Court of Justice of the EU. Today, Christopher is deputy head of our global Antitrust, Competition and Economic Regulation practice.

This is a responsibility that keeps him in close touch with our antitrust practice across the world. He is also a very regular visitor to Japan and other Asian countries, where he works closely with patent, corporate and antitrust colleagues. Unsurprisingly, Christopher's work has involved a wide variety of industries, such as air cargo, beverage alcohol, consumer electronics, electronic components, fashion, financial services, freight-forwarding, logistics, maritime transport, medical devices, metal production plants, metal trading, mobile devices, motor vehicles, paper, pharmaceuticals, railway services, software, thermal power generation, telecoms services and wind turbines.

That said, Christopher has particular experience of the antitrust issues affecting industries in which technology and intellectual property are critical. He has been closely involved in many of the leading cases in this area, whether relating to interoperability, the enforcement of standard essential patents, patent ambush, geo-blocking, performing rights licensing, anti-piracy TPMs or any number of other issues.