John Schmidt leads the UK Competition team in London. He has over 25 years of experience dealing with competition authorities and courts in the UK and the EU. He regularly advises on complex competition conduct issues, investigations, litigation, and merger cases with a particular sector focus on the life sciences, consumer goods, and TMT. He is dual-qualified in the UK and Germany with full rights of audience before the European Court of Justice.
John has extensive experience advising pharmaceutical and medical device companies on pricing matters, including a number of reverse payment patent settlement cases both at the EU and UK level as well as investigations into excessive pricing and restrictive agreements in the pharma sector. He also advises on parallel trade and supply chain design, as well as challenging public procurement tenders on behalf of his clients.
Within the retail and consumer goods space, John regularly advises clients on pricing and distribution issues as well as online strategies. He has represented retailers and suppliers in UK vertical pricing investigations.
In merger control, John obtains merger clearances from the UK’s Competition and Market Authority and the European Commission and coordinates strategy for multijurisdictional merger clearances in the rest of the world. This increasingly also involves obtaining Foreign Direct Investment clearances in the UK, various EU member states and worldwide.
John has in-depth experience representing clients on complex competition litigation and has also acted in follow-on damages actions before the Competition Appeal Tribunal. He is currently representing the claimants in respect of Heineken's pan-European trucks fleet for damages arising out of the EU trucks cartel as well as other drinks and consumer goods companies in large individual claims in the Dutch and UK courts.
John has been consistently ranked as a leading lawyer by Chambers UK ("very knowledgeable, easy to work with and adept at explaining complicated issues."), Chambers Europe, and Chambers Global, as well as The Legal 500.
Experience
- Bristol-Myers Squibb in its US$4.1 billion acquisition of Turning Point Therapeutics.
- Shed Media in the AIM takeover by Warner Brothers (UK)
- Cirrus/Wolfson Microelectronics (UK)
- CTrip/SkyScanner (UK)
- Boston Scientific/BTG (UK)
- Bertelsmann/Penguin Random House/Simon& Schuster (UK and rest of the world)
- ThermoFisher/PPD (FDI)
- AT&T/WarnerMedia/Discovery (EU, UK, rest of the world and FDI)
Perspectives
Recognition
Competition/Antitrust – London (2018-2012)
Competition Litigation (2023)
Credentials
Education
- Diploma in Legal Practice, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh Law School
- LL.B. (Hons), The University of Edinburgh
Admissions
- Registered Foreign Lawyer, SRA
- Scotland
- Germany
Activities
- Member, Joint Working Party on Competition Law of the Bars and Law Societies
- Member, Law Society of Scotland Competition Law Subcommittee
- Member, Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht
Languages
- German