Frederic Depoortere

During his career, Mr. Depoortere has been involved in some of the most high-profile and complex merger control cases, including for clients such as Red Hat, Inc., Rockwell Collins, General Electric Company, Dupont, Merck and Nokia Corporation. He also deals with general EU competition law and compliance issues relating to cartels, vertical restraints and dominance.

Mr. Depoortere’s experience includes work on the following transactions:

• Air Canada with the antitrust aspects of its US$523 million combination agreement with Transat A.T. Inc.;
• Willis Towers Watson in its US$30 billion acquisition by Aon plc;
• DuPont Nutrition & Biosciences Inc. in its merger with International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.;
• Silver Lake Partners V, L.P. in its €500 million ($565 million) acquisition of Silae;
• Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada in its US$390 million acquisition of an 80% stake in InfraRed Capital Partners;
• WeWork Companies LLC in its $4.4 billion investment from SoftBank Group and SoftBank Vision Fund;
• ZeniMax Media Inc. in its acquisition by Microsoft;
• DSV A/S, a Danish logistic group, in connection with its US$4.6 billion acquisition of The Panalpina Group;    
• Worldpay in its $43 billion merger with FIS;
• Rockwell Collins, Inc. in its US$30 billion acquisition by United Technologies Corp.;
• Hospira, Inc. in its acquisition by Pfizer Inc.;
• CME Group Inc. in its acquisition of NEX Group plc for US$6 billion, including assumed debt;
• Red Hat, Inc. in its acquisition by IBM in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately US$34 billion;
• ABB Ltd. in its US$2.6 billion acquisition of GE Industrial Solutions from General Electric Company;
• Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. in its initial US$1 billion acquisition of a 66.7% interest in Silversea Cruises and its subsequent acquisition of the remaining 33.3% interest in the company;
• Becton, Dickinson and Company in its US$24 billion acquisition of C. R. Bard, Inc.;
• EMC Corporation in its acquisition by Dell Inc.;
• Armstrong World Industries, Inc. in the US$330 million sale of its EMEA and Pacific Rim businesses to Knauf International Gmbh.;
• Esterline Technologies Corporation in its US$4 billion acquisition by TransDigm Group Incorporated.;
• XL Group Ltd. in its US$15.3 billion acquisition by AXA SA;
• Validus Holdings, Ltd. (Bermuda) in its US$5.6 billion acquisition by American International Group, Inc.;
• E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company in its merger-of-equals with The Dow Chemical Company;
• Konecranes Plc in connection with its:
  • proposed acquisition of Terex Corporation’s material handling and port solutions unit; and
  • proposed, but terminated, all-stock merger with Terex Corporation;
• CF Industries Holdings, Inc. in its proposed, but terminated, acquisition of the European, North American and global distribution businesses of OCI N.V.;
• General Electric Company in connection with:
  • the global antitrust aspects of its acquisition of the energy unit of Alstom SA; and
  • its proposed acquisition of the aviation business of Avio SpA;
• Merck KGaA in its acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich Corporation;
• Nokia Corporation in connection with:
  • its combination with Alcatel-Lucent; and
  • the sale of its devices and services business to Microsoft;
• Nokia Siemens Networks in its acquisition of the wireless network infrastructure assets of Motorola, Inc.; and
• Outokumpu Oyj in its acquisition of the stainless steel business of Thyssen Krupp.

Mr. Depoortere repeatedly has been selected for inclusion in Chambers Global and is highly regarded in Chambers Europe, in which clients describe him as “everything you would want in a lawyer: a very smart, hard-working, good advocate who is respected and liked in Brussels.” He also was named a 2021 Litigation Star for Belgium - Competition/Antitrust by Benchmark Litigation and was referred to as a “deals guru” in the 2018 edition of the GCR100. Mr. Depoortere repeatedly has been named a leading practitioner in his field by The Legal 500 EMEA, International Comparative Legal Guide: Merger Control, The International Who’s Who of Competi­tion Lawyers & Economists and Who’s Who Legal: Competition.