Former Deputy Director-General for Mergers and State Aid at the European Commission to Join Latham & Watkins in Brussels

Latham & Watkins is pleased to announce that Carles Esteva Mosso will join the Brussels office as a partner in the Antitrust & Competition Practice.  Esteva Mosso joins the firm from the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP), where he served in a variety of positions, including as Deputy Director-General for Mergers between 2014-2019 and Deputy Director-General for State Aid between 2019 – 2021. He has also held a number of other leadership posts relating to merger enforcement and competition policy since joining the Cabinet of former Commissioner Mario Monti in 1999.

Esteva Mosso is one of the leading figures in the global antitrust community, and has been actively involved in some of Europe’s most significant merger control and State aid matters, policy decisions, and legislative proposals over the past two decades.

“We are delighted to welcome Carles to the team,” said Lars Kjølbye, Office Managing Partner of Latham & Watkins in Brussels. “He is one of the foremost practitioners in his field, and he will bring an unparalleled breadth of experience, intellectual fire power, and relevant perspective that will be of tremendous value to clients spanning a variety of global industries.”

In an illustrious career, including more than 25 years with the European Commission, Esteva Mosso has overseen a variety of high profile antitrust, merger control, State aid, cartel and enforcement matters.

His extensive experience includes working in cooperation with senior government representatives of EU Member States on matters of national importance and with prominent enforcement agencies across the world, including the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the Spanish CNMC, the French Autorité de Concurrence, the German Bundeskartellamt, the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice, the US Federal Trade Commission, and the Chinese SAMR, among others.

“Carles is one of the most accomplished and well respected antitrust enforcers in the world,” added Jacques-Philippe Gunther, a Paris-based partner and Global Vice Chair of the firm’s Antitrust & Competition Practice. “His uniquely broad experience complements and extends our practice and further establishes Latham as the ‘go-to’ firm for complex cross-border deals and high-stakes enforcement matters.”

“In his distinguished career, Carles has gained unanimous recognition by agency peers, the global competition bar, general counsel, and the business community as a sophisticated antitrust practitioner who combines a deep understanding of law and policy matters, with commercial acumen and a unique understanding of complex decision making and appreciation for ‘big picture’ issues,”  said Mandy Reeves, Global Chair of the firm’s Antitrust & Competition Practice. “We are thrilled he has decided to join Latham following his long and illustrious track record in public service.”

Ignacio Gomez-Sancha, Office Managing Partner of Latham’s Madrid office, added: “With more than two decades working on contentious and non-contentious matters at the heart of one of the most active agencies in the world, Carles will be a tremendous asset to our practice in Madrid, led by Jose María Jiménez-Laiglesia. He joins an already very strong bench and he will play an important role in further building our capability in Spain, Europe and around the world.”

Esteva Mosso is the latest high profile practitioner with significant enforcement agency experience to join the firm’s market-leading global Antitrust & Competition Practice, following the recent arrival of Ian Conner, former Director of the Bureau of Competition at the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The firm has a deep bench of seasoned practitioners with significant agency expertise, which includes Brussels partners Lars Kjølbye and Elisabetta Righini, who previously served at the European Commission; London partners David Little and Jonathan Parker, formerly of the UK Competition and Markets Authority; and Beijing partner Hui Xu, who served at the China Chamber of Commerce under the Ministry of Commerce of China. In addition to recent arrival Ian Conner, Washington, D.C. partners Alan Devlin and Mandy Reeves have also served at the FTC, while New York partners Lawrence Buterman, Washington, D.C. partner Elizabeth Prewitt, and Bay Area partners Niall Lynch and Daniel Wall all previously worked in the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

Esteva Mosso graduated in both Law and Economics at the Universidad de Barcelona and in Political Science at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, before completing a Masters Degree in EU Law at the Institut d’Études Européennes of the Université Libre in Brussels.   After joining the Barcelona Bar, he worked in private practice for several years before joining the European Commission in 1994.  He has held a number of prominent positions at the Commission over the years, including as a Member of cabinet of former Commissioner for Competition Policy Mario Monti; Head of Unit for Merger Policy, Mergers in Telecoms and IT, and Private Enforcement; Director for Competition Policy and Strategy; and Deputy Director-General in charge of Mergers. Most recently, he served under the leadership of Executive Vice President and Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager as Deputy Director-General for State Aid. He will start at Latham in June.

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