IT/TMT

In the aftermath of the Microsoft cases in the US and EU, and with the Commission’s recent investigations into the use of patents in the mobile telephony market, the importance of knowledgeablecompetition advice to companies in the TMT sector is clear. Our combination of competition expertise and technical knowledge enables us to provide that advice. Working with leading US advisers in this field in worldwide disputes, we have been at the forefront of advising on competition/IT related issues in a variety of sectors, including micro-processing, mobile communications, PC hardware, and computer games software, hardware and firmware. Public litigation in which we have advised on such matters includes Intel v VIA Technologies, Ericsson v Samsung, Samsung v Apple, Nokia v IPCom and IPCom v HTC.

We also advise individual companies and licensing pools on the competition related issues that arise in the context of standardised technologies, including the FRAND obligation. Our lawyers have written and spoken widely on this and related topics.

With the increase in competition-related litigation in national courts, IT and telecommunications companies have found themselves defending competition claims more frequently in domestic litigation. Our sector-specific competition expertise and strong dispute resolution practice puts us at the forefront of advisers in this area. For example, we acted on behalf of mobile telephony operator T-Mobile (now Everything Everywhere), defending it against a competition claim from rival 3 in the Commercial Court.