Profile details
About Rikki Haria
Rikki is a partner in our Antitrust, Competition and Trade group. He assists clients before EU and UK regulators and courts across the full range of competition law matters, including merger control and foreign investment reviews, antitrust investigations and market inquiries.
As a member of the firm's global tech practice, Rikki advises a broad range of tech and digital platform businesses, including on regulatory investigations, new technologies and strategic issues with significant implications for their commercial objectives. He also has a particular focus on the telecoms, financial services, retail and consumer products sectors.
Having spent time working in London and Silicon Valley, Rikki is able to help clients navigate complex regulatory environments, including new digital regulation (such as the EU Digital Markets Act) and the intersection between competition, data privacy and consumer protection law. He also regularly advises on high-profile, cross-border M&A and investigations.
Rikki has extensive experience before the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and European Commission, including through his time on secondment to the CMA’s mergers unit. This enables him to formulate arguments that play well with decision makers and to approach cases with innovative ideas.
Recent work
- BT Group/Openreach on its rollout of full fibre broadband in the UK, and the share acquisitions by Altice.
- Boparan Private Office on successfully obtaining an unconditional Phase 1 approval from the CMA in relation to its acquisition of Bernard Matthews.
- Cazoo on a string of commercial projects and transactions around Europe.
- CVC on the merger control and competition aspects of its strategic investments in the Premiership Rugby and PRO14 rugby competitions.
- A global technology company on its defence against parallel antitrust investigations by the European Commission and the CMA, and on its defence and coordination of other antitrust proceedings around the world.
- A global technology company on its response to the CMA’s market study into online platforms and digital advertising.
- A global technology company on its landmark challenge against the European Commission before the EU General Court, including obtaining interim relief from the EU General Court.
- Hellman & Friedman Advisors LLC on its $6bn acquisition of payments platform Concardis.
- HSBC on various market studies and investigations, including the CMA’s Phase 2 market investigation into retail banking.
- MásMóvil on its €18.6bn joint venture with Orange to combine their telecommunications operations in Spain.
- Tesco on successfully obtaining an unconditional Phase 2 approval from the CMA in relation to its acquisition of Booker, and on its strategic alliance with Carrefour.
- Verizon on the global antitrust and foreign investment aspects of the $5bn sale of Verizon Media to funds managed by Apollo Global Management, Inc.
- Zoopla and RVU on their growth strategy and various acquisitions in relation to their property and digital comparison businesses, including Confused.com and Tempcover.
Qualifications
Education
Trinity Hall, Cambridge University, UK (Law)
Professional qualifications
BPP Law School, Legal Practice Course (with distinction)
Solicitor, England and Wales