Our Brussels Practice
We have in-depth knowledge and experience of EU legislation and rules which we apply in understanding, anticipating and addressing the needs of our clients.
Situated at the heart of the European quarter, our Brussels office is co-located with five of our European 'Best Friends' firms with whom we work closely. Our extensive international experience and relationships with leading full service law firms across Europe and globally mean that we are exceptionally well-placed to deal with cross-border issues.
Our key practice areas
We advise on all aspects of European competition law.
In particular, we handle notifications to the European Commission under the EU Merger Regulation and represent clients facing investigations and complaints under Articles 101 and 102 TFEU, as well as equivalent national laws. We also advise on the rules on State aid, as well as monitoring other EU developments and maintaining regular contact with Commission officials.
Our extensive international experience and relationships with specialist competition practices around the world mean that we are exceptionally well-placed to deal with cross-border cases and issues raised by the increased co-operation between competition authorities.
Our Brussels team includes about 20 specialist competition lawyers, and works as an integral part of our Competition practice.
We have a leading Financial Regulation practice with extensive experience of EU regulatory issues. Our team of specialists advise clients right across the financial services sector, as well as non-regulated businesses, on all aspects of EU financial regulation. We have assisted and continue to assist clients on the implementation of all of the most important regulatory reform initiatives arising from EU legislation since the financial crisis, including reforms to the prudential regulation of banks (CRD IV, BRRD and related structural reform initiatives), derivatives and related market infrastructure (EMIR), insurers (Solvency II) and asset managers (the reformed UCTIS and AIFM regimes).
We spend a proportion of our time in Brussels, where we monitor and advise on EU financial regulatory developments, engage with a network of financial regulatory contacts in European institutions and assist with lobbying efforts.
We work closely with the Best Friends Firms with whom we are co-located in Brussels, a part of our international approach which means we are exceptionally well-placed to deal with global financial regulation issues.
Our practice forms part of the firm’s Financial Institutions Group comprising corporate and financing lawyers as well as lawyers from specialist departments.
We are also advisers to ambitious and entrepreneurial firms breaking new ground in the fintech sector, whether developing, procuring, or investing in financial technology. Read more about our Fintech practice.
We have a highly regarded Data Protection and Privacy practice with a broad range of experience in advising clients on EU legislation and proposals concerning data protection, privacy and compliance.
Global organisations handling personal data can be faced with complex and sometimes challenging regulatory regimes to contend with as data flows are handled across borders. We take a pragmatic and commercial approach to guide our clients through this regulatory maze, avoiding the pitfall of seeing data protection compliance as a legal ‘box-ticking’ exercise.
We advise on all aspects of data protection and privacy, from data processing arrangements to the design and implementation of complex multi-jurisdictional data strategies on both contentious and non-contentious matters. This regularly involves taking account of data protection and privacy rules on a global basis, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation and its ambitious extra-territorial reach.
Our Data Protection and Privacy practice operates on a unique cross-border ‘hub and spoke’ data advisory model: rather than a narrow data protection compliance advisory team, we train and support data protection specialists in all our practice areas, including insurance, dispute resolution, financial regulation, technology, employment and strategic sourcing to name a few, and across all our offices. This enables us to provide our pragmatic advice, swiftly and efficiently, and tailored to each particular engagement.
Our team of specialists also work closely with the Best Friends firms with whom we are co-located in Brussels and, as part of our international approach, with our wider network of relationship firms across the world. This means we are exceptionally well-placed to deal with global data protection and privacy issues.
Visit our Data Protection and Privacy practice for more information.
Following the UK referendum on 23 June 2016, the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020. We provide advice and assistance to our clients on the legal and practical issues raised by Brexit, including the challenges and opportunities for businesses in the UK, elsewhere in the EU, and globally. For more detailed information, please see our Brexit publications.
In Brussels, we are well placed to monitor Brexit developments outside the UK and to take account of the attitudes and concerns of the EU institutions, other Member State governments, and other interested parties. We also work closely with our Best Friends to ensure that we have a good understanding of the different challenges and opportunities raised by Brexit elsewhere in the EU.
Careers
All our trainees start their careers in our London office - we do not currently operate a separate trainee programme or offer stagiaire opportunities in our Brussels office.
However, as part of their two-year training contract, trainees can apply to be seconded to our Brussels office during their six-month seat in our Competition group. Every three months, five trainees from our London office are seconded to Brussels (so generally 20 trainees during the course of each year).
Find out more about:
We do not offer a separate vacation scheme in our Brussels office (although some of those who take part in work experience schemes operated by our London office also have the opportunity to visit the Brussels office).
If you are interested in a career as a lawyer working in an international environment and want to learn more about training at Slaughter and May, you can read more about our work experience schemes and campus events and apply online.
Lawyers in our Brussels office work closely with the rest of the Competition Group in London, Hong Kong and Beijing. Although several of our qualified lawyers in Brussels are working here on a secondment basis (after having spent some time in the London office), we also recruit EU qualified lawyers directly in Brussels.
Find out more about what it is like to be a qualified lawyer at the firm.
We also have a number of paralegal positions across the Firm. We have one paralegal position in Brussels which is currently filled for the 12 months to end August 2020. We expect to be inviting applications from suitable candidates who would be available to start work in September 2020 for a fixed 12 month period (further details will be available here). Paralegal positions are also available at various times in our London office.
In addition to the career opportunities at Slaughter and May, our Brussels office is co-located with five of our European 'Best Friends', offering further opportunities to work in Brussels as well as elsewhere in Europe and internationally.
Contacts
Our Brussels team is led by four resident partners, all of whom are Competition specialists. In addition, a number of other partners continue to be established in Brussels (having previously been resident in Brussels).
