US: Kyriakos Fountoukakos appointed managing partner at Herbert Smith Freehills

Herbert Smith Freehills has appointed Kyriakos Fountoukakos to the role of Managing Partner of its Brussels office. His appointment comes as the firm also announces the promotion of Daniel Vowden to partner in Brussels and of Peter Rowland to Of Counsel, with effect from May 1, 2019.

Kyriakos succeeds Craig Pouncey, who is retiring after 32 years with the firm. Craig has been Managing Partner of the Brussels office since 2005.

Kyriakos has more than two decades experience in competition law. He joined Herbert Smith Freehills as a partner in 2006, having spent 5 years as a European Commission official at DG Competition’s merger task force and Référendaire (Legal Assistant) in the cabinet of the former President of the EU General Court.

Kyriakos has been instrumental building the EU competition law practice in Brussels, advising key clients in high profile cases including abuse of dominance and merger transactions particularly in the TMT, energy/mining, pharmaceutical, and consumer sectors as well as cartel cases including in automotive parts and financial services. He works extensively across the firm’s international network and one of his responsibilities includes managing a dedicated cross-border team based in Tokyo, providing competition-law advice to Japanese clients. Kyriakos is also an officer of the IBA Antitrust committee and teaches merger control law at the LLM programme of UCL (London).