Mergers & Acquisitions

Arne Grimme + 67 other experts

Involved in most of the leading M&A deals in the Netherlands

We provide services to a range of corporate clients and financial institutions on a broad spectrum of corporate and commercial matters. In addition to its mainstream mergers and acquisitions capability, our expertise encompasses private equity, corporate structures and reorganisations as well as corporate litigation.

We advise on public and private and public-to-private takeovers, private equity, acquisition finance, and acquisitions and divestments of major Dutch and international corporates and financial institutions active in the Netherlands.

Our legal advice focuses on achieving practical solutions when drafting and negotiating various forms of takeover and joint venture contracts, and undertaking merger control filings while coordinating global in-house and local counsel.

We continue to manage multi-jurisdictional acquisitions and divestments and we maintain strong working relationships with the leading firms in the United States, Asia and Europe.


De Brauw is characterised by unsurpassed knowledge, which it applies very pragmatically. The team is incredibly approachable and helpful, eager to think alone and independently contributes solutions. (...) Each lawyer in this department is very smart and technically skilled. At the same time, they really understand the business and deal dynamics.

Chambers, 2026
Chambers, 2026

Insights

21 May 2026

Europe’s new draft merger guidelines: an evolved framework for a competitive era

The European Commission has published its new and highly anticipated Draft Merger Guidelines, the first comprehensive restatement of EU merger assessment in almost two decades. The draft consolidates two previously separate instruments into a single analytical framework organised by competitive effect rather than merger type. Its most consequential change is the formal introduction of a theory of benefit as a central analytical concept, sitting alongside the established theory of harm from the outset of any transaction review. The Commission has also significantly broadened the analysis, with an expanded list of harms and benefits that can play a role in the overall assessment. Although the Commission is not exactly ''relaxing'' the rules to create "European champions", it is certainly widening their application and recalibrating its approach to deal reviews by offering much more room for broader policy considerations.
25 March 2026

The Danish Compromise revisited: implications for cross-financial sector M&A

What was once a technical corner of the Capital Requirements Regulation (CRR), suddenly found itself at the forefront of several high-profile European M&A transactions in 2025. The Danish Compromise, as the capital treatment under Article 49(1) CRR is commonly known, allows banks to risk-weight significant investments in insurance undertakings rather than deduct them from their own funds. With its application being subject to certain conditions and supervisory permission, the provision was, and to some extent still is, at the centre of a broader debate about group structures of banks, prudential consolidation and cross-sector M&A in the European Union.
13 February 2026

Side-by-side: will acceptance of US minimum taxation standards impact EU competitiveness?

On 5 January 2026, the OECD published the Side-by-Side (SbS) Package. This package complements the OECD Inclusive Framework's model rules aimed at securing global 15% minimum taxation for large multinationals (referred to as "Pillar 2"). These minimum taxation rules have been implemented within the EU with effect from 1 January 2024.