Lauren
O’Brien

London

20 Air Street
London W1B 5AN
United Kingdom

Education

PG Dip./M.A., King’s College London

LL.M., College of Europe

Bar Admissions

Brussels

England and Wales

Ireland

A counsel in the Litigation Department and a member of the Antitrust Practice Group, Lauren is a sought-after advisor to leading global businesses on a wide range of complex and high-impact matters related to antitrust, merger control, foreign direct investment, and consumer law.

Lauren leverages her extensive knowledge of current and emerging regulations, industry best practices, and deep knowledge of the regulatory environment to counsel companies on their most complex large-scale transactional projects and merger reviews. Her clients have included leading public and private companies in the technology, asset management, life sciences, consumer goods and industrial sectors, among others. Lauren completed a six-month secondment to the mergers team at the Competition and Markets Authority in 2018 and a four-month client secondment in 2021. She is admitted to practice in Brussels and England & Wales.

Highlights of matters on which Lauren has recently acted include advising:

  • EP Group on its recommended cash offer for International Distribution Services (IDS), the parent company of the UK’s Royal Mail and international parcels network GLS.
  • Outbrain Inc. in its $1 billion acquisition of Teads, a New York-based advertisement technology firm, from Altice S.A.
  • TDR Capital on the purchase of Italy’s leading non-food discount retail brand, Acqua & Sapone, from H.I.G. Capital and the founding Barbarossa family. 

Prior to joining Paul, Weiss, Lauren’s matters included:

  • TDR Capital on the sale of LeasePlan to ALD Automotive.
  • Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. in relation to the acquisition of The Binding Site.
  • Capita plc on the merger control and foreign investment aspects of the sales of Capita’s ESS and Axelos businesses.
  • Just Eat plc on various competition matters including its merger with Takeaway.com.
  • Dialog Semiconductor plc in relation to its acquisition by Renesas Electronics.
  • Farfetch on the acquisition of 100% of the share capital and voting rights of Upteam Corporation Limited, trading as Luxclusif.
  • Bayer Global Investments B.V on its acquisition of UK-based biotech KaNDy Therapeutics Ltd.
  • BP plc on the sale of its petrochemicals business to INEOS Group.
  • Mitie Group plc on the CMA’s unconditional clearance of its acquisition of lnterserve Facilities Management.
  • GBST Holdings Limited as target on the Phase 2 CMA investigation in FNZ/GBST.
  • Greene King plc on its acquisition by CK Hutchinson Holdings Limited.
  • J Sainsbury plc on its attempted £7 billion merger with Asda and associated litigation in the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
  • Amec Foster Wheeler plc on its £2.2 billion acquisition by John Wood Group plc, cleared by the CMA in Phase I with remedies.

Lauren is also actively involved in the development of junior lawyers, particularly women lawyers. She has also been involved in many pro bono projects, including coordinating reports on women’s incarceration issues for Penal Reform International.

Lauren was awarded the prize for the best masters thesis on economics of competition law at the College of Europe.