Bio

Marco Hickey is a highly experienced competition and M&A/corporate lawyer having practiced in both areas for many years. Marco is Head of the EU Competition and Regulated Markets team at LK Shields and is head of a large team of corporate/commercial lawyers specialising in M&A transactions. 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). Marco heads the firm’s Healthcare and Life Sciences team having led various transactions in these sectors and advised businesses on a wide range of legal issues including regulation and compliance under Irish and EU law. Dr Marco Hickey has considerable experience in EU and Irish competition law (antitrust) including merger control, State aid, 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. Prior to joining LK Shields, 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 2023 and is ranked in Who’s Who Legal Competition 2023.