UK defence company BAE Systems will boost its US presence, having agreed to buy United Defence Industries for $4 billion.

McDermott Will & Emery has taken over the EU law group of Stanbrook & Hooper.

Competition Policy Associates and RBB Economics have teamed up to offer their European and American clients more harmonised economic analysis.

Competition specialist, Brian Sher, is leaving Latham & Watkins to join Allen & Overy in London as a senior associate.

Stefan Perván Lindeborg has been elected partner at Mannheimer Swartling.

Piper Rudnick LLP and UK law firm DLA have merged. The new firm can boast that it is the world's third-largest law firm. Its competition group has 92 lawyers.

Members of British Telecom have urged a rethink of the law on margin squeeze. They were speaking at a conference on the subject that the company helped to organise.

Any business that has an agreement with another at a different level of the production and distribution chain, which may affect trade within the UK (a 'vertical agreement') and which does not fix prices or represent an abuse of a dominant position, is currently likely to benefit from an exclusion under the Competition Act 1998 (ie it does not breach Chapter I of the Act which prohibits anticompetitive agreements). However, in response to the modernisation of EC competition law, the UK government has announced the repeal of this exclusion. Accordingly, until 1 May 2005, when the repeal takes effect, businesses have the opportunity to review any existing UK vertical agreements to ensure they are not in breach of the Act. This will involve considering the applicability of the EC Block Exemption and relevant guidance. Alison Baker Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer London

A recent decision by the UK competition authority highlighted the challenges in the joint selling of sporting rights in Europe now that ‘notification’ of an agreement to the OFT or the European Commission is no longer possible. It also provides useful guidance on the circumstances in which the collective selling of media rights will not be anti-competitive.

A publican from Staines in London has become the first European to win damages under European competition law. Bernie Crehan, the publican, has pursued his own cause for 11 years. In the process he has fought his way up and back down Europe's court system. He has now persuaded the UK Court of Appeal to side with him over his former landlord.

The recent judgments of the Competition Appeal Tribunal and Court of Appeal in IBA Health have given hope to potential third-party challengers.Alison Jones Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer London

Matthew Readings, 33, of Lovells’ London office has been made partner. Readings, who joined Lovells in 1994 as a trainee, specialises in EU and UK competition law.

Hammonds has recruited Alasdair Bell, 40, to head its competition practice in London.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has recruited Eric Morrison, a senior economist at the UK's Office of Fair Trading.

King & Spalding will establish its first office outside the United States when it opens in London later this year