Alan Ryan

About Alan Ryan

Alan is a founding partner of our Silicon Valley office. He is relocating from our Brussels office where he was an antitrust partner with nearly 30 years' experience before the European Commission and courts and national competition authorities.

Alan’s practice focuses on European competition and regulatory law. At the European Commission, he worked on almost 100 EU Merger Regulation cases, including many phase two cases, phase one with remedies and difficult phase one unconditional clearances. He has also successfully defended and brought complaints for abuse of dominance and anti-competitive agreements and secured total release from cartel proceedings for clients. Alan is additionally an experienced litigator before the European and national courts, and has worked on five appeals of EU Merger Regulation decisions at the European General Court delivering a successful outcome for his clients each time as well as a variety of cases across the spectrum of EU competition law in the General Court and Court of Justice and before national courts.

Alan has achieved many “firsts” for his clients on cases which are now precedent-setting. For example, he delivered the first successful appeal of an EU Merger Regulation prohibition in over 15 years (UPS), the complete defense of clients as varied as Amadeus in an Article 102 case before the French competition authority (Optionizr), Emirates in the air cargo case and several unconditional phase one clearances in the face of determined opposition (Navitaire) and successful complaints leading to prohibition of mergers (GE/Honeywell and Ryanair/Aer Lingus).

Alan works for clients across industries but is well-known for his success in high-tech, life sciences and transportation. He recently stepped down as co-head of the firm's global infrastructure and transport sector group following a five-year term.

He enjoys the challenge of difficult cases, where it is necessary to drive the case, rather than simply follow it. Alan maintains an in-depth understanding of all his clients’ businesses and his aim is always to further their interests in the most effective manner possible.

Recent work

• Acting for UPS in its landmark appeal of the Commission prohibition of the UPS/TNT transaction. This was the first successful appeal of a merger prohibition in over 15 years and only the fourth ever and only the second such appeal ever to be upheld by the Court of Justice. It is also the first case in recent memory where a US company was successful on appeal at both the General Court and Court of Justice on appeal of a Commission competition decision where it was the only appellant;
• Acting for Amadeus, the number two European software company, in its defense against several Article 101 and 102 complaints at EU and national level including most recently the Optionizr case in France as well as securing unconditional merger clearance for its acquisition of US software/IT company Navitaire;
• Acting for a major European B2C online player in several complaints at EU and national level on inter alia online sales restrictions and data ownership;
• Acting for the Irish Government and Rockwell Collins in their successful opposition to the Ryanair/Aer Lingus and GE/Honeywell mergers at European Commission and before the European General Court;
• Obtaining unconditional clearance for Zentiva in its recent acquisition of Alvogen CEE, an important European life sciences player;
• Landmark cases on the interpretation of EU law in the English Court of Appeal (Monarch) and the Spanish Audiencia Nacional (CNMC/HP/Oracle).