The financial services sector has experienced significantly greater antitrust scrutiny over the past few years as a number of factors - the aftermath of the financial crisis, the publication of the Report of the UK's Independent Commission on Banking, and the appointment of a new EU Competition Commissioner with a strong interest in the sector – have conspired to provoke structural, behavioural, State aid, and merger control investigations at EU and national levels.

Chaired by Cleary Gottlieb partner Nicholas Levy, this high-level conference brings together senior figures from the financial and business sectors, senior policy makers from the EU Commission and the UK Office of Fair Trading, lawyers, and economists to discuss these investigations and the application of antitrust rules to the financial services sector more generally.

Among other topics, the conference will examine:

- whether the financial services sector is different from others (and, if so, in what ways),

- the Commission's approach to State aid in the banking sector;

- the landmark decision prohibiting the (then) proposed merger of NYSE Euronext and Deutsche Börse; and

- a series of recent leading behavioural investigations.

Chairman:

Nicholas Levy, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Keynote speaker:

Clive Maxwell, Executive Director, Office of Fair Trading

Speakers:

Matthew Bennett, Charles River Associates, and former director of economics at the Office of Fair Trading

Onno Brouwer, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP

Lorenzo Coppi, Compass Lexecon

Peter Freeman, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Simon Gaysford, Frontier Economics

Helen Jenkins, Oxera Consulting

Benôit Le Bret, Gide Loyrette

Alastair Mordaunt, Clifford Chance LLP

Paolo Palmigiano, Lloyds Banking Group

Lisa Rabbe, Credit Suisse [tbc]

Nickolas Reinhardt, Fleishman-Hillard

David A. Schwartz, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Irmfried Schwimann, European Commission

Robbert Snelders, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Mark Williams, NERA Economic Consulting

David Wood, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Johan Ysewyn, Clifford Chance LLP

8:30am: Registration and coffee

9.00am: Chairman’s introduction
Nicholas Levy, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

9.10am: Keynote speech: Antitrust issues in the financial services sector
Clive Maxwell, Executive Director, Office of Fair Trading

9.30am: Is the financial services sector different?
Peter Freeman, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Lisa Rabbe, Credit Suisse [tbc]
Paolo Palmigiano, Lloyds Banking Group
Nickolas Reinhardt, Fleishman-Hillard
Simon Gaysford, Frontier Economics

11.00am: Coffee break

11.20am: State Aid in the financial services sector: issues and challenges
Irmfried Schwimann, European Commission
Johan Ysewyn, Clifford Chance LLP
Onno Brouwer, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
Lorenzo Coppi, Compass Lexecon

12.50pm: Lunch

2.00pm: Deutsche Börse/NYSE Euronext: legal, economic, regulatory and policy issues
Benôit Le Bret, Gide Loyrette
David A. Schwartz, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz
Mark Williams, NERA Economic Consulting
David Wood, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP

3.30pm: Tea break

4.00pm: Information exchange in the financial services sector
Alastair Mordaunt, Clifford Chance LLP
Matthew Bennett, Charles River Associates
Helen Jenkins, Oxera Consulting
Robbert Snelders, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

5.30pm: Chairman’s summing-up and closing