Dawn Raids

When the regulators come knocking, you need an experienced legal partner to guide you through what can be a tense and even frightening situation, while making sure your commercial interests are protected.

With years of experience supporting multinational clients who’ve had unannounced visits from national and international competition authorities, we can do just that, regardless of what jurisdiction or industry sector you’re in.

For example, when a global household products manufacturer found itself included in the European Commission’s detergents cartel investigation, we attended the dawn raid at its global HQ. We then coordinated the defense of raids in seven other jurisdictions and worked closely with the client in the subsequent two-year investigation.

No charges were made against our client. However, its major rivals were fined over €300 million.

We can advise you on the practical and strategic issues of a dawn raid at a single site or at several premises across the world at the same time. We’ll also make sure you don’t get improperly treated by the inspecting authority.

Even if you haven’t been subject to a dawn raid, it’s still a great idea to be prepared for one. Again, we can help by drafting and implementing appropriate plans and procedures, training your employees to ensure they react appropriately during the visit and testing your procedures by running mock dawn raids.

Download our app, Dawn Raids First Response

Our Dawn Raids First Response app draws on our experience of handling dawn raids. This free resource provides:

• tailored guidance for different groups of employees
• step-by-step practical guidance on what - and what not - to do
• contact details for experienced legal advisers in over 20 jurisdictions across the EU, US and Asia

Get Dawn Raids First Response from the App Store and Google Play.