Paul Johnson

“Paul Johnson is a very knowledgeable, reactive and smart lawyer.”
The Legal 500, Competition: EU and Global

Paul brings more than two decades of experience advising clients on complex competition law matters in the UK, EU, and across global jurisdictions. He counsels clients across the full spectrum of UK and EU competition law, including merger control, joint ventures, foreign direct investment (FDI), the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR), cartels, abuse of dominance, distribution arrangements, and other strategic commercial relationships. Paul is a trusted adviser to leading businesses in energy and heavy industry, financial services, life sciences, technology, media, and insurance, regularly guiding clients through high stakes matters before the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) and the European Commission.

Experience

Representative matters

Advised a global technology company with respect to a $69 billion acquisition by a rival global technology company of a software company.

Advised a global mining company on three separate acquisitions with a total value of $68 billion.

Advised a global technology company with respect to a $61 billion acquisition by a rival global technology company of a software company.

Transactional support

Advised a global technology company with respect to a $69 billion acquisition by a rival global technology company of a software company.

Advised a global mining company on three separate acquisitions with a total value of $68 billion.

Advised a global technology company with respect to a $61 billion acquisition by a rival global technology company of a software company.

Advised a Japanese conglomerate on its $11 billion acquisition of a power grid business.

Advised a financial services company with respect to a $10 billion acquisition of a stock exchange.

Advised a global technology company on two separate disposals valued at more than $10 billion to a private equity fund.

Advised a medical device company on its $5.8 billion acquisition of a diagnostic testing company.

Advised a health care manufacturing company on its $5.5 billion acquisition of a drug capsule manufacturer.

Advised a multinational health care company on its $5.1 billion acquisition of a device manufacturer.

Advised a global pharmaceutical company on the antitrust and merger control aspects of a $4 billion acquisition of a biopharmaceutical company.

Advised a hospitality company on its $2 billion acquisition of a hotel chain.

Advised a global pharmaceutical company on the antitrust and merger control aspects of a $1.95 billion acquisition of a biopharmaceutical company.

Advised a health care manufacturing company and a bioscience company on their microbiome joint venture before the European Commission.

Behavioural and regulatory advice

Advised a global hyperscale cloud company in multiple cloud computing investigations and managed regulator engagement in market studies in France, Japan, the Netherlands, and South Korea.

Advised a major global financial institution in connection with multiple investigations concerning potentially collusive behaviour.

Advised a global technology company with respect to multiple EC investigations into allegations of abusive conduct.

Advised a pharmaceutical company on its $5.1 billion collaboration agreement with a competing pharmaceutical company.

Advised a global media company on the European Commission’s investigation into cross-border access to pay-TV content, including negotiating a settlement agreement with the case team.

Advised a global technology company with respect to the UK CMA’s market study into music streaming.

Advised a global technology company with respect to the application of the Digital Markets Act to cloud computing.

Advised a payment scheme on a range of regulatory issues involving national banks and payment sector regulation, including the Anti-Money Laundering Directive, Payment Services Directive II, Interchange Fee Regulation, and European Central Bank’s proposal on cyber resilience.

Advised a major global insurance institution on Brexit-related issues and developed options to support continued access to the EU single market.

Advised a major insurance company on the London Market dry-run testing the resilience of the world’s pre-eminent insurance market to a major loss event.

Recognitions

Listed, Lexology Index – UK: Recommended as a leader in the London competition market (2025)
Listed, Who’s Who Legal: Competition – Recommended (2019–2025)
Winner of the Concurrences Antitrust Writing Award for “The Stories Merger Documents Tell – the US, EU, Asia, Brazil, Mexico, and South Africa Perspectives” (2019)

Credentials

Education

King's College London, 2008, Postgraduate Diploma, Economics for Competition Law
King's College London, 2007, Postgraduate Diploma , Competition Law
BPP Law School, 2004, LPC
University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 2001, LL.B., Hons