Arntzen de Besche

Arntzen de Besche has an up-and-coming practice which has handled some notable matters in the past year. Practice head Stein Ove Solberg and partner Thomas Nordby are well thought of, while senior associate Thea Susanne Skaug returned in August from a secondment as legal director at the Competition Authority in Bergen.

With five associates, this is one of the smaller practices in our survey. In 2009, the competition team advised Ticketmaster on its deal with Live Nation - a major scalp for the practice in a market where merger deals were few and far between. The firm also secured environmental company Enova as a client last year. Arntzen de Besche also represented meat processor Nortura in its acquisition of assets from competitor Spis Grilstad.

On the contentious side, the firm defends road construction company Mesta in a private action, while it also boasts one of the best state aid practices in Norway - Nordby takes the lead in state aid matters.

Partner Jan Magne Juuhl-Langseth heads Schjødt’s competition practice. As the only firm in our survey with an office in Brussels, it claims a notable presence before the European courts, and handles more cases than most at the EFTA surveillance authority. It also boasts a Norwegian practice that is weighted towards players in Norway’s energy markets. In the past year, the team has defended publisher Cappelen Damm against an unfair pricing complaint, while it also worked for ExxonMobil in a petrol station investigation. It also has a major pharmaceutical client which faces antitrust litigation, and does lots of work for chemical manufacturer Yara International, Norway’s third-largest listed company. With two partners and six associates, Schjødt enjoys an increasingly visible piece of the competition pie.