Mannheimer Swartling

Sweden

Large, effective and ambitious, Mannheimer Swartling is widely acknowledged to be among the best firms in Sweden. Practice heads Tommy Pettersson and Johan Carle are both Who’s Who Legal: Competition nominees. Carle says he wants the team to grow by 50 per cent and have at least two more partners – hopefully leading to the firm working more with large Swedish companies that currently use foreign lawyers. Former head of the firm’s Brussels office, partner Stefan Perván Lindeborg, has now returned to Stockholm; however, the firm maintains an office in Brussels as well as Frankfurt and Berlin.

The firm has acted in a number of high-profile dominance cases this year, and represents Swedish Match in a case brought by the authority over alleged abuse of dominance in the domestic moist snuff market. The authority is seeking a fine of 38 million kronor with a preliminary hearing scheduled for December. The team are also representing Nasdaq OMX in proceedings before the Stockholm City Court and successfully represented The Absolut Company, a subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, in an arbitral award case against state alcohol company, Systembolaget that resulted in damages paid to supplier, Absolut.

Mannheimer represents Kronfågel in its proposed acquisition of rival Lagerberg. The companies are producers of refrigerated, frozen and processed chicken, and the merger involves multiple markets and distribution chains. The firm says it has been involved in two-thirds of all Phase II investigations this year.