David Wood

David Wood is an English qualified partner and member of the Brussels Bar based in the Brussels office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Mr. Wood's practice encompasses the full range of antitrust issues, including cartels, merger control (often involving the co-ordination of cases before several different competition authorities), abuse of dominance, restrictive agreements, sector inquiries and private enforcement. He has particular experience with cases involving abusive pricing and refusals to supply by dominant undertakings, as well as the establishment of joint dominance and network-related issues. He has strong sectoral expertise in the financial services and media/high-tech sectors, and is also experienced in the pharmaceutical, chemical, software, consumer electronics and transport sectors.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Mr. Wood spent 10 years (from 1992) at the antitrust enforcement division of the European Commission (DG Competition), including positions as Head of the Financial Services Unit and Acting Head of the Media Unit. He is one of the few lawyers in private practice to have held a senior position in the antitrust enforcement division of the European Commission (DG Competition), meaning he brings to his clients not only deep experience of European antitrust enforcement, but also valuable insights into how to manage risk and avoid problems. During his time at the Commission he was responsible for the teams involved in some of the most hard-fought cartel cases and some of the most high-profile and complex media, transport and financial services cases. He was also a member of the Commission working groups responsible for most of the significant developments in EU antitrust policy and appeared regularly before the European Courts of Justice.

Mr. Wood is renowned for his deep experience of the full range of issues involved in European antitrust enforcement and he is consistently recognised as a leading European antitrust practitioner, for example the current edition of Chambers Global (where he is ranked as a leading lawyer for Competition/European Law) notes that "clients…laud his ability to quickly cut to the core of an issue and understand how it fundamentally affects their business" and have also commented that his "strategic mind and pragmatic, business-oriented approach" is especially valued by clients. Similarly, Mr. Wood is commended by The Legal 500 for his antitrust expertise in relation to the financial services, media and hi-tech sectors, and in recent editions he has been singled out by client sources as "an outstanding competition lawyer who knows our business very well and provides prompt and practical legal advice" and "practical, very straightforward, very efficient". He is also ranked as a leading Competition/European Law practitioner in the current edition of Chambers Europe, which notes that he is "extremely smart" and "capable of quickly latching onto key issues".

In addition, Mr. Wood is ranked by PLC Which Lawyer? for EU Competition (since 2006) and Media (since 2010), by Legal Experts EMEA 2012 for EU and Competition and by Chambers Europe 2011 for EU Competition (for the fourth consecutive year). He is listed as a leading practitioner worldwide in the 2011 edition of Global Competition Review's International Who's Who of Competition, and was nominated by in-house counsel and peers as one of the pre-eminent lawyers in the world by Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Competition & Antitrust Lawyers/Economists (9th Edition). He is a frequent writer and speaker on competition law issues and is a member of the editorial board of Competition Law Insight.

Mr. Wood began his legal career in 1986 working in the London and Brussels offices of a major international law firm, where he practiced litigation and commercial law, particularly where antitrust issues were involved.

Selected Publications

Co-Author of "Free Market 1: Copyright 0 - UK Premier League Loses Away from Home" in Volume 18, Issue 6 of the Utilities Law Review, 2012.

“It really is about the cloud”, Competition Law and the proposed Google Book Settlement, Competition Law Insight, March 2010.

“Outsourcing deals in the US: The antitrust implications”, Competition Law Insight, July 2008.

"Developments in the online advertising world", Competition Law Insight, March 2008.

"Proving It - The Standard and Burden of Proof in Article 82 cases", Competition Law Insight, March 2008.

"Legal Privilege in the EU: Is the Balance Right? Akzo Nobel v Commission", Utilities Law Review, February 2008.

"Competition in the Clearing and Settlement Sector", Butterworths Journal of International Banking and Financial Law, June 2006.

Co-author of "Court Upholds Contentious Prohibition", European Lawyer, March 2006.

"Regulation and competition in the media sector", Competition Law Insight, 15 November 2005.

"The Tetra Laval Appeal: A Clarification of Standards of Juridical Review in Merger Control Cases", Utilities Law Review, 2004/5 (Volume 14, Issue 3).

"Sector by sector", Legal Week, August 2005.

"Article 82 and leveraging", Competition Law Insight, July 2005.

"Sector inquiries under EU competition law", Competition Law Insight, February 2005.

"Media rights, the creative process and antitrust limits on the exercise of IPRs", Communications & EC Competition Law, October 2004.

"Interlocking Directorships - measuring the antitrust risks", Competition Law Insight, September 2004.

"A new framework for technology transfer agreements in Europe", International Asset Management, June/July 2004.

"Legal certainty at the expense of economic rationality? The EU's struggle with the pricing practices of dominant firms", Competition Law Insight, June 2004.

"An effects-based approach to technology transfer agreements", Competition Law Insight, May 2004.

"Cartel Investigations - International Aspects", British Institute of International & Comparative Law, October 2003.

"The Role of the European Commission in Private Antitrust Actions", International Business Lawyer, August 2003.