Jenny Leahy

About Jenny Leahy

Jenny is a partner in our Antitrust, Competition and Trade group. Her practice covers all aspects of EU and UK competition law, including merger control, behavioural investigations, market studies/investigations and strategic antitrust counselling.  Jenny also advises clients on navigating global foreign investment regimes, including UK NS&I.  

Jenny has experience of advising clients across a wide range of industries, with a particular focus on the life sciences/healthcare and tech sectors. Highlights include advising on high-profile, complex merger control transactions, including public takeovers. She has experience of engaging with antitrust agencies around the world and is a pragmatic, commercially minded lawyer.

Jenny is a passionate advocate for diversity & inclusion. She is a founding member of W@Competition UK, chaired the Freshfields' Women's Network from 2016-2018 and spearheaded our EDGE campaign, as well as various other internal DEI initiatives.  

Based in London, Jenny is also a member of the Brussels bar and has spent time on secondment to our Washington DC and Brussels offices. 

Recent work

• Advising AstraZeneca on its $245 million deal with Cellectis SA, a deal aimed at speeding up the development of CAR-T treatments in areas including oncology, immunology and rare diseases. 
• Advising a Global Technology Company on Ofcom’s UK cloud services market study and various related global matters. 
• Advising Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease, on its acquisition of LogicBio, a genomic medicine company.
• Advising CVC Capital Partners on the merger control aspects of its €1.5bn investment in the Ligue de Football Professionnel's new commercial subsidiary.
• Acting for London Stock Exchange Group on its $27bn acquisition of Refinitiv, a financial information, data and analytics provider, which required review by 20 antitrust authorities worldwide, including in-depth merger reviews in the EU and US, as well as foreign investment reviews in several jurisdictions.
• Advising Honeywell on the combination of Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum Computing and acquisition of a majority stake in the combined company.
• Advising AstraZeneca on its $6bn global development and commercialisation agreement with Daiichi Sankyo.
• Advising Comcast on the global merger control and public interest aspects of its £30bn public bid for Sky plc, including achieving unconditional Phase 1 clearance from the European Commission, and advising on the global merger control and public interest aspects of its $66bn bid for the global assets of 21^st Century Fox. Read more about the deal in our case study.
• Advising Berry Global on the global merger control and competition aspects of its £5.1bn public bid for RPC Group.
• Advising AstraZeneca on its $8.5bn strategic oncology collaboration with Merck.
• Advising Experian plc on the CMA's Phase 2 investigation into its proposed acquisition of ClearScore.
• Acting for London Stock Exchange Group on its recommended £21bn merger with Deutsche Börse.
• Advising Betfair on its £5bn merger with Paddy Power.
• Advising Poundland plc on the CMA's Phase 2 investigation into its acquisition of 99p Stores.
• Advising ChemChina on the global merger control and foreign investment aspects of its $1bn acquisition of industrial machinery maker KraussMaffei Group and its $8bn public bid for Italian tyre giant Pirelli, which required clearance in over 15 jurisdictions.