Vincent Smith
Vincent Smith is a Partner with Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll LLP in London focusing on UK and European claimant and complainant competition matters. He joined in May 2007 from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) where he was Senior Director for Competition and Director of its Competition Enforcement division from 2003. He led the OFT’s 180-strong competition function, with overall responsibility for the OFT’s work in combatting cartels and other anti-competitive practices, and for the OFT’s merger control duties. From 2002-2003 he was the OFT’s Director of Competition Policy Co-ordination and deputy Director of the division.
Whilst at the OFT Vincent was responsible for many high profile decisions and policies. In particular, he led the settlement negotiations in Independent Schools (the first settlement trust in an OFT competition case) and was heavily engaged in the groundbreaking Mastercard interchange fees decision. Cartel enforcement, particularly in the construction sector, also formed a large part of his responsibilities, in particular with the first initiatives to ‘fast track’ groups of cases. He also oversaw the OFT’s input to the later stages of negotiating and then implementing the ‘devolved’ European competition enforcement regime under EC Regulation 1/2003 in the UK, and latterly shaped the OFT’s ongoing work on encouraging a greater degree of private enforcement of competition law in the UK.
Before joining the OFT, Vincent was the Legal Director for Competition at OFTEL, then the UK telecommunications regulator, where he advised on a wide range of regulatory issues, including the first use in the UK by a public enforcement body of its formal powers under the Competition Act 1998.
Vincent qualified as a solicitor in 1990 and spent the next ten years in private practice in London and Brussels, at senior and then partnership level, specialising in EC and competition law, including defending companies in cartel cases (in cement and carton board, for example) and advising on mergers and joint ventures, and also on patent and other intellectual property licensing arrangements in various technology sectors.
He has a Masters degree in European Law, with distinction, from the University of Liège and a first degree in law and French from the University of Surrey. He was also a ‘stagiaire’ in the European Commission’s Legal Service.
He is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars and teaches competition law procedure at postgraduate level at University College, London.
Contact: vsmith@cmht.com
Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll LLP is a Limited Liability Partnership registered under the laws of the State of New York as CMHT-NY LLP. It is a multinational partnership between Solicitors of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and Registered Foreign Lawyers and is regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority of England and Wales. It is affiliated to Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll PLLC, which has offices in Washington DC, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco.
