John Boyce

• T  +32 (0) 2 737 94 11 (Direct line)
• E  john.boyce@slaughterandmay.com

• Brussels 
• Square de Meeûs 40, 1000 Brussels, Belgium

John has been resident in Brussels since 1996.

He has regularly been involved in the notification of deals to the European Commission, since the adoption of the EU Merger Regulation in 1989. His practice also involves cartel investigations by the European Commission and national competition authorities (including immunity/leniency applications). His contentious work includes proceedings before the General Court and Court of Justice in Luxembourg, including successful appeals in cartel, merger, State aid and parallel trade matters.

Highlights include:

• advising British Airways on the Commission investigation and approval (under Article 101 TFEU) of BA’s transatlantic alliance with American Airlines and Iberia, as well as the EU Merger Regulation clearance of the BA/Iberia merger
• advising Bertelsmann in the Sony/BMG Phase II merger case (including unconditional clearance decisions in 2004 and 2007) and subsequent appeals to the European courts, as well as on the disposal of its music publishing interests (to Vivendi/Universal)
• various other Phase II cases (eg Cargill/Degussa Food Ingredients, IBM/Telelogic, SC Johnson/Sara Lee), as well as cases where parties have secured Phase I clearances by offering commitments, (eg Akzo Nobel/ICI, Intel/McAfee, Linde/BOC, Procter & Gamble/Gillette, Reckitt Benckiser/SSL), and several cases where the parties have successfully used the Article 4 pre-notification referral procedures (introduced in 2004)

John is ranked as a leading individual (Band 1) in the Competition/European Law sections of Chambers Europe and Chambers Global  and is a contributing author to Bellamy & Child  (European Community Law of Competition, 6th edition, 2008 ), Chapter on Merger Control. He is fluent in French.