"Clients have been impressed with Kyriakos Fountoukakos, a recent arrival from the Commission, who will focus on merger control and CFI work"
Chambers UK, 2007
Kyriakos joined Herbert Smith in January 2006 as a partner in the firm's EU Competition and regulation group. He is a competition law specialist and deals with all aspects of EU and UK competition law with a particular focus on merger cases and litigation before the EU courts in Luxembourg. Kyriakos has advised clients in the media, telecommunications, oil and gas, financial services/insurance and IT sectors. His clients include major international companies such as Time Warner, Swiss Re and Vodafone.
Kyriakos brings particular specialist expertise through his previous experience at the European institutions. Before joining Herbert Smith, he held positions as a European Commission official at DG Competition's Merger Task Force (2001-2004) and as a Référendaire (Legal Secretary) in the cabinet of the President of the Court of First Instance of the EU (CFI) (2004-2005). Previously, Kyriakos had been an associate at Herbert Smith's European competition group in London.
As an official in DG Competition's Merger Task Force, Kyriakos amassed considerable experience dealing with high profile merger cases, as well as appeals to the CFI. He was a member of the team of officials that drafted and negotiated in the Council expert working groups the recent reforms to the EC merger control system including the new Merger Regulation and also participated in the drafting of new Commission Notices and the new Best Practices in Merger Proceedings.
At his position in the CFI, Kyriakos was actively involved in the handling of interim measures proceedings in cases concerning all aspects of Community law.
Kyriakos has studied law and European Studies at the universities of Athens, King's College London, Cambridge and Columbia School of Law, New York. He has qualified as a Greek lawyer and as a solicitor in England & Wales. He is fluent in English, Greek and French.
Kyriakos frequently speaks at competition law conferences in London, Brussels, Paris, the US and Japan. He has authored several articles on competition law and is one of the authors of the mergers chapter in the forthcoming edition of the well-known textbook "Faull & Nikpay: The EC Law of Competition".
- Global Competition Review identifies Kyriakos as one the world’s leading 40 competition lawyers under the age of 40. Click here to read more (pdf 320k).