Damien Geradin

Career

Damien Geradin is the founding partner of Geradin Partners. Before founding Geradin Partners, Damien was a partner at Euclid Law, and immediately before that a partner in the Brussels office of Covington & Burling LLP.

Damien has assisted clients in many high-stake European Commission investigations, including some of the most complex abuse of dominance cases with a focus on the tech, media and telecommunications sectors. Damien has also developed expertise on the application of competition rules to the licensing of standard-essential patents (SEPs), and he is a member of the Commission Expert Group on SEP licensing and valuation.

According to Chambers Global, Mr. Geradin “is well known for his writing”, with commentators describing him as “one of the best antitrust theoreticians around”. Chambers Europe also notes that clients report that he is “very responsive and skilled in abuse of dominance cases” and that he is a “a living legend” regarding his work on EU telecoms mandates. Damien was also recognised by Who’s Who Legal 2018 as a Competition expert.

Damien is a Professor of competition law and economics at Tilburg University and a visiting Professor at University College London. Over the years, he has held visiting Professorships at leading US law schools including Columbia, Harvard, Michigan and Yale. He was also a visiting Professor at the College of Europe, Bruges, for 15 years.

Publications

- Damien is the founder and an editor of the Journal of Competition Law & Economics.

- Damien has authored/co-authored over 20 books and 140 book chapters and articles published in journals, such as the Antitrust Law Journal, the European Competition Journal, World Competition, the Common Market Law Review, the European Law Journal, the Journal of Competition law & Economics, the Stanford Technology Law Review, the Berkeley Technology Law Journal, etc.

- Damien has spoken at over 250 conferences on issues of competition law and IP law all over the world.

Work Highlights

- Coalition for App Fairness (CAF) as outside antitrust counsel

- European Publishers Council (EPC) in the UK CMA’s investigation into Google’s Privacy Sandbox browser changes.

- Several app developers in filing a complaint with the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over Apple’s App Store practices. The CMA has launched in response an investigation into Apple.

- IAB France, MMA France, SRI and UDECAM in filing a complaint with the French Autorite de la concurrence over Apple’s introduction of the App Tracking Transparency framework.

- Booking.com over regulatory initiatives affecting digital markets in the EU and the UK.

- PKN Orlen in relation to its merger with Grupa Lotos.

- News Corp over a variety of competition law matters at EU and Member State levels.

- Spotify over regulatory initiatives affecting digital markets in the EU.

- DMG Media with respect to a range of competition law and regulatory matters linked to online platforms.

- Unlockd in its litigation before the UK High Court against Google for abusing its dominant position by removing Unlockd’s apps from the Google Play Store ecosystem and denying access to its ad server AdMob.

- ASML as an expert witness in relation to determination of royalty rates in a patent litigation case before the District Court of The Hague.

- O2 in relation to the EC’s investigation over network-sharing agreements in the Czech Republic.

- Gazprom as an expert witness in an action against the annulment of an arbitral awards before a Swedish Court.

- Bpost in relation to EC State aid investigations.

- An Post on various competition and regulatory issues

- EDF in relation to an EC investigation pertaining to State aid issues

- Slovak Telekom in the EC’s abuse of dominance investigation by the European Commission, and subsequent appeal at the CJEU.

- Microsoft in relation to the EC investigation into the tying of Internet Explorer with Windows (leading to the adoption of a commitments decision by the EC).

Education