Professional notice
About Cederquist
For more than half a century, Cederquist has grown together with its clients, never compromising with the high standards of legal excellence, craftsmanship and business sense distinguishing its lawyers from the very beginning.
Founded in 1953, Cederquist now engages approximately 100 of the top lawyers available on the Swedish market.
The firm has a lean organisation and always work closely with its clients and can adapt its services based on the clients' specific needs. To effectively accommodate the needs of its clients, all of the firm’s lawyers combine extensive legal knowledge with an in-depth expertise in specific areas. Many have practiced at law firms or companies abroad. Personal attention combined with keen business knowledge are key elements to our understanding of the needs of the client to ensure effective legal advice.
Areas of Practice
The firm’s areas of expertise consist of: M&A, commercial real estate, finance, EU and competition law, public procurement, corporate recovery, dispute resolution, employment and benefits, financial market regulation, intellectual property, media and IT law, life sciences, compliance and corporate internal investigations.
Our Competition Law Practice Group
Our reputable EU and Competition law team is led by Fredrik Lindblom and co-partner Elsa Arbrandt. Clients praise the team for having "shown strong skills and experience in competition law and regulations", its "understanding of cross-border mandates […] with a 'constructive, creative and knowledgeable' team" and having "the small firm, personal approach combined with the big firm resources. Very business minded and focused on problem solving."
We assist clients with all types of contentious and non-contentious competition law, including complex merger control issues, abuse of dominance, cartel investigations and leniency applications, sectoral investigations, litigation, compliance programs and training courses, with particular strength in vertical restraints, including authoring the Swedish edition of the EU monograph "Vertical Agreements in EU Competition Law" and obtaining a landmark leniency decision in a vertical restraint matter.
EU law is an area of significant growth for the group, not only in relation to competition law, but in several different legal areas, including recent successes before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice and the Swedish Patent and Market Court.
Key Cases
Abuse of Dominance – Folksam
A competitor complained to the SCA accusing Folksam of abuse of an alleged dominant position through predatory pricing in relation to its legal insurance. After a lengthy investigation, Folksam was acquitted. Cederquist worked in tandem with economists from Compass Lexecon on the matter.
Merger control – Orkla/NutraQ
Orkla Health, the largest provider of food supplements in the Nordics, acquired NutraQ, the largest provider of food supplements in the D2C channel. The acquisition required coordinated parallel notifications in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. Together with Oslo Economics, Cederquist worked out the correct market definition to be applied and the transaction was approved in Phase 1.
State Aid – Stockholm Skavsta Airport
During the corona pandemic the Swedish State decided to give aid to publicly owned airport operators, a publicly owned air traffic control operator, as well as to the airline SAS in the total amount of SEK 9,150 million. Cederquist is acting for Stockholm Skavsta Airport in the state aid complaint to the European Commission. The matter is still pending.
EU Law proceeding – AirHelp
Cederquist has successfully represented AirHelp Limited in a landmark case before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice against SAS, Scandinavian Airlines Systems, following a request for preliminary ruling. AirHelp is the world’s largest air passenger rights advocate. The ECJ ruled with AirHelp and found that a lawful strike by employees was not an extraordinary circumstance relieving the airway companies from their obligation to pay remuneration for cancelled or delayed flights under EU-law.
Cartel investigation – Folksam
Cederquist represented Folksam in an SCA cartel investigation regarding allegations of coordination in public tenders for insurance to public entities. After several years, the investigation was closed in 2020 with no sanctions imposed on Folksam.
Webiste: www.cederquist.com