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Melissa Van Schoorisse

Melissa Van Schoorisse is a special counsel who focuses on a wide range of complex antitrust issues, including multi-jurisdictional merger control filings, international and Belgian cartel investigations, state aid matters, and general behavioral advice, counselling and compliance work.

Ms. Van Schoorisse has represented international and Belgian clients from a wide variety of industries, including the transport, media, consumer goods, power generation and energy fields.

Ms. Van Schoorisse has - prior to joining Covington - gained extensive experience as an associate at two international law firms in Brussels, and as a secondee to the in-house competition team of a multinational oil and gas company in London, dealing with a wide array of vertical issues, cartel investigations, M&A transactions, and compliance training.

European Union (“EU”) Foreign Subsidies Regulation (“FSR”), a new state aid instrument adopted at the end of 2022, will have a significant impact on transactions in the EU. The FSR impacts any company that is present in or wants the enter the EU, and has received financial support in any form from non-EU governments. 

The FSR is game-changing — it imposes notification obligations on companies on subsidies received from non-EU countries and, when those subsidies are considered to distort the internal market in the EU, the European Commission (“EC”) can impose remedies.

Companies will now have notification obligations if they have received foreign financial contributions above a certain amount and are:

(1)    acquiring a company that has a turnover of at least EUR 500 million in the EU, or

(2)    participating in a public tender with a value of EUR 250 million.

These notification obligations will start to apply on 12 October 2023.

Continue Reading EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation – Key Takeaways