The Lawyer revealed last year that Herbert Smith Freehills’ UK antitrust disputes team had scored a bunch of lucrative new mandates, defending Meta, Amazon and Google against class actions in the Competition Appeal Tribunal. The growth of the practice has fallen under the remit of Stephen Wisking. He steps down from his role as HSF’s managing partner of competition, regulation and trade in April, having spent the last six years building up the firm’s advisory and contentious antitrust offering.
UK work also includes advising Japan’s Mitsubishi bank in the appealed FX class action, the Kelkoo and Connexity anti-competitive shopping and advertising claim against Google, plus telecom regulatory cases for Sky, Vodafone and O2. The everlasting Trucks cartel litigation will remain a big focus for Wisking this year, who has since recruited several of HSF’s general commercial disputes partners in London to run the mammoth case.
Looking ahead, Wisking is keen to further expand HSF’s historic tech, media and telecommunications offering to capitalise on the complex Big Tech work generated by the fast-evolving class action regime and the increasingly aggressive UK and Europe competition regulators. Servicing these demands could require headcount expansion, either through its organic pipeline of associates or lateral hires. Watch this space.