Law.com quotes Edwards Gibson director in article: ‘Competition for Competition: How Antitrust Is Becoming One of Big Law's Key Revenue Engines’

Edwards Gibson is delighted that Director, Sloane Poulton, has been cited in a recent Law.com article by Melina Block examining the growing importance of competition and antitrust law within the world's leading law firms. 

The piece explores how increasing regulatory scrutiny, larger cross-border transactions and more complex deal structures have elevated antitrust from a supporting practice to a key component of major M&A mandates, with Freshfields, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, and Slaughter and May all expanding their competition teams in recent years.  

Drawing on Edwards Gibson’s exclusive data from 2021 to 2025, the article highlights a significant increase in antitrust partner movement in the London market, with the number of moves in 2025 doubling compared with the previous year. 

Commenting on the trend, Sloane notes that competition partner hiring has increased steadily in recent years, with many non-contentious antitrust partners joining elite US firms to strengthen their deal capabilities. He suggests this reflects a changing M&A market in which lower deal volumes are being offset by substantially larger and more complex transactions that require greater specialist expertise. 

The article places these developments in the broader context of growing investment in antitrust teams by both UK and US firms, as competition expertise becomes an increasingly important factor in winning and executing high value transactions. 

Read the full Law.com article here.