State aid and competition

State aid provided by public bodies to businesses is bound by number of strict rules in order to prevent the distortion of competition – we make it easy for you to understand how you can operate within these rules and regulations.

Our competition and state aid lawyers have experience of working with government and public sector entities and organisations, as well as private companies. Our work includes leading on actual transactions and as a consequence, our approach is to focus on delivering our clients’ commercial and policy outcomes in a framework which is competition law/State Aid compliant.

We know the rules and regulations that govern State Aid and our lawyers provide clear and practical guidance on how to apply them - the language and terminology of competition and State Aid law can be overly technical so our approach is to focus on what you can do rather than listing what you can’t. We work with you to identify and manage risks and structure projects to comply with the rules.

Our work for the private sector includes:

• Structuring national and regional funding programmes
• Structuring public private commercial and joint venture arrangements
• Making sure public investments and lending are compliant
• Ensuring public sector businesses are competition law compliant Structuring economic growth initiatives National and regional sports stadia

Our work for the private sector includes:

• Structuring their transactions with the public sector to be safe from challenge
• Assistance with business cases for UK and European funding programmes
• Assistance with UK and EU public sector State Aid audits

In brief

• Advising on the structuring of national and regional funding programmes
• Structuring public, private commercial and joint venture arrangements
• Making sure public investments and lending are State Aid compliant
• Ensuring public sector businesses comply with competition law
• Structuring initiatives which promote economic growth
• National and regional sports stadia • Advising bidders on business cases for UK and European funding programmes
• Helping with UK and EU public sector State Aid audits