Partner
and access,
Marco Hickey is a partner in the M&A / Corporate practice and Head of the Byrne Wallace Shields LLP Competition, Antitrust and Foreign Investment Regulation team. Marco is a highly experienced competition and M&A/corporate lawyer having practiced in both areas for many years. His experience as an M&A lawyer greatly benefits his competition practice as it gives him the unique ability to understand the wider transactional context in which the competition advice is being given. Marco has advised on many significant corporate transactions including mergers and acquisitions and complex restructurings. He has acted for many large domestic and international corporations, private equity firms, entrepreneurs, investment managers and management teams (MBOs and MBIs). Dr Marco Hickey SC has considerable experience in EU and competition law (antitrust) including merger control, State aid, Foreign Direct Investment screening of third country transactions, EU customs and trade law and EU Block Exemptions Regulations. Marco is an acknowledged expert in Irish competition law and has acted in some of the most significant complaints and merger reviews conducted under the Irish Competition Act. He has written extensively on the topic of EU, Competition and Regulated Markets and is the author of "Merger Control" which was published by the Thomson Reuters group in May 2013. This is the only book to date devoted exclusively to the competition law implications of mergers and acquisitions in Ireland. He has published many articles and is often asked to comment on competition law issues and developments in publications such as the Sunday Business Post, Irish Times, Irish Independent and Sunday Independent. Marco’s PhD thesis was in competition law. Marco is very much a solution-oriented lawyer focussed on practical ways of achieving the desired commercial outcome and confines his academic analysis to situations where this type of input is required to achieve the desired result. Marco was the winner of the Client Choice Award for 2015. Marco has been with the firm since 2000. He he practiced in the Brussels office of Squire Patton Boggs and the London office of Clifford Chance and then with another leading firm in Dublin. Marco is recognised as a Leading Individual for EU and Competition by Legal 500 2024 and is ranked in Who’s Who Legal Competition 2024. In July 2024, the Irish government, on the advice of the Advisory Committee (the members are the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the President of the Court of Appeal, the President of the High Court, the Attorney General, the Chair of the Bar Council, the President of the Law Society and a nominee of the Minister for Justice) granted Marco a Patent of Precedence entitling him to use the title Senior Counsel. The above was granted on the basis of Marco’s specialist knowledge in the area of EU and competition law.
