Dr. Michael Engel

Partner, London

Biography

“He is thoughtful, highly responsive, practical and efficient. He understands client concerns and offers excellent solutions to difficult issues.”
Chambers UK 2024

“I think he’s very proactive, he’s extremely hard-working, stays on top of the matters, he helped us solve problems and had creative solutions to get around them.”
Chambers UK 2024

“Michael combines a highly astute legal mind with a formidable eye for strategy. He has excellent judgement and strategic thinking and always provides pragmatic advice.”
Chambers UK 2023

Overview

Michael Engel is a partner in our global Antitrust practice based in London.
 
He represents clients before the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office. Michael advises on the full spectrum of competition law, in particular UK, EU, German and multi-jurisdictional merger control, cartels, State aid and compliance as well as foreign direct investment matters. 

Michael has extensive experience in advising on complex multi-jurisdictional merger reviews. His contentious experience includes advising clients in the context of cartel and state aid investigations, as well as follow-on damages actions before the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal and national EU Member State courts and appeals of European Commission decisions to the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Michael is routinely recognised as a leading antitrust practitioner, including by Chambers and Partners, Global Competition Review, Who's Who Legal and The Legal 500. He is a non-governmental advisor to the CMA in the International Competition Network and co-chair of the London chapter of the German Competition Lawyers Association (Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht).

Prior to joining White & Case, Michael was an antitrust partner in the London office at another leading US law firm.

Bars and Courts
England and Wales
Rechtsanwalt
Education
Dr jur
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Second State Exam
State of Lower Saxony
First State Exam
Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg
London School of Economics and Political Science
Languages
English
German
French

Experience

His experience includes advising:

American Securities and its portfolio company Prince International Corporation on the $2.1 billion acquisition of Ferro Corporation and subsequent merger with Chromaflo, which resulted in the creation of one of the largest surface coatings and specialty chemicals companies in the world.

Noble Corporation on its acquisition of Maersk Drilling.

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles on its $50 billion merger with PSA Group. The merger created the world's fourth largest car manufacturer.

CNH Industrial/Iveco and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in the European Commission's trucks cartel investigation and related multi-national follow-on damages litigation across the EU.

Praxair on its $90 billion business combination with Linde, which combined the world's second and third largest industrial gases companies, creating a new global number one.

Bayer on its $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto, which created the world's largest agrochemical company.

Teva Pharmaceuticals on its $40.5 billion acquisition of Allergan's generics business.

Alcatel-Lucent on its $16.6 billion business combination with Nokia.

LAN Airlines on its $13 billion merger with the Brazilian airline TAM, which created South America's largest airline.

ZF Friedrichshafen on its $12.4 billion acquisition of TRW Automotive Holdings.

LVMH backed L Catterton on its $4.9 billion acquisition of the German footwear manufacturer Birkenstock and a L-Catteron led consortium on its acquisition of Truck Hero.

Intelsat on its $7 billion restructuring.

Thoma Bravo on its $3.75 billion acquisition of Calypso Technology.

KKR on its investment in Outsystems.

Macquarie on its acquisition of certain infrastructure assets in Europe and the US.

Navistar on the $3.9 billion acquisition by Volkswagen Group's trucks division Traton.

Chevron on its $2.1 billion sale of its North Sea oil and gas assets to Delek Group's subsidiary Ithaca Energy.

Trinseo on its $1.34 billion acquisition of Arkema's plexi-glass business.

Twilio on its investment in Syniverse Corporation.

Fiat Chrysler Finance Europe in connection with the European Commission's state aid investigation regarding Luxembourg's tax rulings and its subsequent appeals before the General Court (Case T-759/15) and the Court of Justice (Case C-885/19).

Goldman Sachs on a variety of transactions including its acquisition of the software company EcoOnline together with the Summa Equity; on its acquisition of the software company Nuxeo together with Kennet Partners; on its acquisition of Hamlet Protein together with Altor Funds, on its acquisition of the insurance company Rothesay together with Blackstone; on its acquisition of Hastings Insurance Group; in its acquisition of joint control over the Danish energy company DONG Energy together with the Kingdom of Denmark; on its acquisition of Ontex together with TPG Capital; on its acquisition of BNL Sciences and BrandNu Laboratories by its portfolio company Caldic; on its investment in the Eastern European retail company Fix Price; on its acquisition of B&B Hotels; on its acquisition of the insurance company Aston Lark; on its acquisition of a stake in the fashion company Modanisa; on a bolt-on acquisition of the pharmaceutical portfolio company Mederma; on its acquisition of Gloria Jeans; and on its acquisitions of a number of real estate portfolios and loan portfolios.

Mubadala on the formation of the joint venture Azaliya with Veolia Eau; and the formation of a joint venture with Pramerica Financial.

Silver Lake Partners on its acquisition of a 65% interest in Skype Technologies from eBay.

Rhône Capital on its acquisition of Evonik's carbon black business together with Triton, on its acquisition of CSM's bakery supplies business; on its acquisition of the corporate training company GK Holdings; on its acquisition of the pool cleaning equipment company Zodiac Pool Holding; on its acquisition of the logistics and supply chain service provider Neovia together with Goldman Sachs; and on its acquisition of Wahoo, the main competitor of Peloton.

Ares and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan on its $1.5 billion acquisition of the building materials manufacturer CPG International and Ares in connection with its investment into McLaren and in Ryan.

Abry Partners on its investment in Inoapps.

H.I.G Capital on its acquisition of Oxford Global Resources.

Oak Street on its $15 billion acquisition of STORE Capital.

SVP Global on its attempted sale of the Polish business of its portfolio company Pfleiderer to Kronospan.

E2open on its acquisition of BluJay Solutions.

Tinicum on on its acquisition of the electronic components manufacturer AMI Doduco; and the $1.5 billion acquisition of its portfolio company Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing by Stanley Back & Decker.

Cytec Industries on the $1.1 billion sale of its coating raisins business to Advent International.

Solera Holdings on its $6.5 billion acquisition by Vista Equity Partners.

Colson Medical Companies on the $2 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway.

Survitec on the acquisition of the Norwegian survival and maritime equipment provider Hansen Protection.

Standard Industries on its $1.2 billion acquisition of the roofing products company Braas Monier.

TLG Immobilien on its acquisition of shares in Germany's largest commercial real estate company Aroundtown and its subsequent EUR 25 billion merger with Aroundtown.

CyrusOne on $0.5 billion acquisition of Zenium Data Centers.

Terumo Corporation on its $1.2 billion acquisition of healthcare assets divested by Abbott Laboratories and St. Jude Medical.

Concordia Healthcare Corporation on its $2.1 billion acquisition of Amdipharm Mercury.

Philips Healthcare on its $1 billion acquisition of Volcano Corporation.

Elis on its EUR 2.6 billion acquisition of its competitor Berendsen.

INC Research Holdings on its $7.4 billion acquisition of inVentiv Health.

Drillisch on its EUR 8.25 billion business combination with United Internet.

CNH Industrial on its acquisition of Kongskilde Industries'agricultural and farm equipment business.

Diebold on its EUR 1.7 billion acquisition of Wincor Nixdorf.

Insight Enterprises on its $0.2 billion acquisition of Datalink Corporation.

Hay Group on its $0.4 billion acquisition by Korn Ferry.

Castleton Commodities International on its $1.5 billion acquisition of Morgan Stanley's global oil merchanting business.

Sompo Japan Nipponkoa Holdings on its $1 billion acquisition of SCOR.

Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing on its $0.4 billion acquisition of Bristol Industries.

Derichbourg on the sale of its ground handling division Servisair to PAI Partners.

Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation on its $1.5 billion acquisition, along with ArcelorMittal, of ThyssenKrupp's steel manufacturing operations in the U.S.

APR Energy on its acquisition of General Electric's temporary power generation rental business.

Sempra Energy on the $2.7 billion sale of its global metals and oil as well as the European power and gas businesses of its RBS-Sempra global commodities JV to J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy Corporation.

Magneti Marelli in the European Commission's cartel investigation into the exhaust systems sector.

Awards and Recognition

"Up and Coming" Partner, Chambers 2024

"Global Leader" in competition and "Thought Leader", Who's Who Legal 2023 and 2024

"Next Generation Partner", Legal 500 2023

Michael is routinely recognised as a leading antitrust practitioner, including by Chambers and Partners, Global Competition Review, Who's Who Legal and The Legal 500.

Chambers and Partners have ranked Michael "Up and Coming" (UK 2022, 2023 and Europe 2022, 2023).

Global Competition Review 100 has recognised Michael as "recommended" in the UK (2022).

Additionally, Who's Who legal has identified Michael as one of the UK's leading competition law practitioners and recognised him as "Global Leader" in Competition (2021 and 2022) and "Future leader" (2018, 2019 and 2020) where he was described as "clearly a standout: a sharp-minded competition lawyer who consistently demonstrates excellent thinking" and as a "great pleasure to work with".

The Legal 500 UK guide (2022) has recognised Michael as a key lawyer who is "highly committed and very collaborative".

Michael was further recognised by Lexology who named him as the winner of the 2021 Client Choice Award for the category Competition & Antitrust in the UK.