Helen Gornall

Helen has extensive experience in all aspects of competition law, including merger control, cartels, dominance, vertical restraints and state aid. She has a particular expertise and interest in digital markets, including mergers in this area and the convergence of competition law with consumer law and privacy.

Helen joined De Brauw in September 2018, moving from her position as Director Competition Law at Akzo Nobel NV, where she was responsible for competition law and merger control matters globally across all decorative paints and performance coatings businesses.  She advised Akzo Nobel on antitrust aspects of PPG’s takeover bid in 2017, and on the sale of the Specialty Chemicals business to Carlyle in 2018.

Prior to this, Helen spent 12 years advising clients on competition law at two international law firms in London, Brussels and Amsterdam. She has worked extensively with economists across a range of matters.

Her experience includes:

• advising Takeaway.com on its acquisition of Delivery Hero’s German food delivery activities and subsequently, on its merger with Just Eat plc to create one of the largest online food delivery companies in the world;
• advising on complex mergers before the European Commission, UK Competition and Markets Authority and Dutch Autoriteit Consument en Markt, including several in-depth phase 2 investigations and cases requiring significant remedies to obtain clearance;
• high-profile abuse of dominance cases such as the Coca-Cola settlement, Tomra and Pfizer/Flynn;
• representing the Dutch Central Bank as intervener in ING’s appeal against the Commission’s state aid decision before both the General Court and the European Court of Justice.

In 2007/2008 Helen was seconded to the antitrust team at Philips. She is a member of the Dutch Competition Law Association and a regular speaker at competition law conferences.