Chillin'Competition

The evidence looks bad.

Alfonso did not post anything yesterday and he missed several of his slots over the past weeks. So what keeps him  so busy?

The Spanish news have reported it here and there. His law firm Garrigues has been selected by Cisco to appeal the Commission’s clearance decision in Microsoft/Skype.

No need to read again, you read well: Garrigues, the biggest Spanish law firm has been selected to litigate in Luxemburg a huge competition case involving mammoth international companies.

The truth of the matter it that it is unusual for a law firm of this kind to represent a client of this kind, in a high-profile case of this kind. Yet, Garrigues made it, confirming that the market for high profile EU competition cases is no longer the monopoly of big US law firms.

Interestingly, Garrigues prevailed over several international law firms in a beauty contest. Maybe I am biased here, but I suppose that what drove Cisco’s decision is the wealth of talented lawyers lined-up by Garrigues. Besides Alfonso – who deserves to come first in the yet to be created 30 below 30 ranking – Garrigues counts several impressive lawyers, with a fantastic  experience including at the Commission and EU Courts. Just think of Jose Luis Buendia and Luis Ortiz Blanco. Both have a huge track record before the EU Courts, and are known in the business as first class competition academics.  Mix this with a touch of latin creativity and a spoon of humility (this is all too rare in our community), you get a potentially terrific team.

All this confirms also that in the market for EU legal services, people matter more than size, brand or nationality. A few years ago, the Belgian boutique Van Bael & Bellis made a similar big impression, when it announced it represented Microsoft before the Commission and the Courts.

The bottom line is that I just wanted to say congrats to them, and good luck.

PS: And with this, I have secured a great number of votes from Garrigues lawyers at the AT awards :).