Nicholas Hirst

Chief Correspondent

Nicholas covers EU merger review and antitrust investigations for Mlex in Brussels. He previously wrote about EU affairs for Politico Europe, European Voice and PaRR. After earning an LLM in European law from the College of Europe in Bruges, he spent a year working in the competition practice of a leading competition law firm in Brussels 2009-10. He graduated in modern European languages from Oxford University in 2006.

Selected Insights by Nicholas

Korean Air's ready-made Asiana deal remedy will test EU's thinking on airline mergers

26 January 2023 14:25 Nicholas Hirst, Natalie McNelis, Jenny Lee

Korean Air Lines’ bid to take over its closest rival Asiana is the airline merger to test the European Commission
Unwinding Illumina’s Grail deal will be a lengthy, and messy, process

07 September 2022 17:38 Natalie McNelis, Nicholas Hirst

Illumina will likely eventually have to unwind its acquisition of Grail as a result of the EU merger regulator’s block on it
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Europe
Illumina-Grail’s EU veto sees return of the innovation theory of harm

06 September 2022 16:27 Natalie McNelis, Nicholas Hirst

EU’s Illumina-Grail merger review has been a procedural rollercoaster
- Mergers and Acquisitions
- Europe
Big Tech leans on antitrust concessions to ease burden of EU's new digital markets law

12 August 2022 10:47 Lewis Crofts, Tono Gil, Nicholas Hirst

The European Commission is marshaling the troops to ensure enforcement of the Digital Markets Act
Antitrust’s clash with sports governance to get its EU court reckoning

07 July 2022 12:11 Lewis Crofts, Nicholas Hirst

The future of European sport will be invoked at back-to-back EU court hearings on skating and football.
- Antitrust
- Europe