Community spirit

Jeremy Fleming visits the European Union's corridors of power in Brussels where lawyers have to lobby the commission for justice amid a labyrinth of red tape - and finds a city sprouting with legal work

The Brussels outpost of City firm Lovells is emblematic of representative offices of other big players from the Square Mile in the European Union's hub.

It started out as what current partner Tom McQuail describes as 'one man and his suitcase' 29 years ago when Britain joined the European Community.

Now, following the merger of Lovells in the past couple of years with Germany's Boesebeck Droste and Simeon & Associs in France, the ten-partner office includes Dutch, German, French, Belgian and British lawyers.

However, Mr McQuail acknowledges that uniting the three firms' Brussels offices might not have been the 'deal-breaking' issue when the main firms came together.

Certainly the London firm has the balance of influence - more than half the partners were originally from Lovells - and a large panorama of 18th century London hanging near the foyer sets the tone.

The main areas of practice covered by the office are competition, trade, and World Trade Organisation advice.

Mr McQuail explains that some of the competition work handled by Lovells is litigious.

For example, the firm is currently working on behalf of confectionery giant Mars in an action before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

He adds: 'The main difference between the competition department here and that in London is that we get work sent directly to us from the clients here, and we generate an awful lot of our own work.'

Jane Golding - the main partner at City firm Taylor Joynson Garrett's Brussels office and also a competition specialist - has the kind of European background that makes her to an extent typical of the skills base of solicitors working there.

She started her career as a barrister in London before working in-house in Turin after a six-month work experience spell at the European Commission.

Ms Golding has only recently transferred to the solicitor branch of the profession, having joined TJG in Brussels in 1998.

She says competition law is under threat as a practice area from moves in the European institutions to devolve decision-making back to member states.

'There is certainly a decentralisation initiative going on.

Under article 81 of the Treaty of Rome, the commission is trying to modernise its approach.

In effect, this will mean that more merger references will be sent back to the member states.

'At the same time, the commission is making it easier for national courts to apply article 81(30) exemptions from merger regulation.

This measure - which currently only the commission can apply - would give member states' courts the ability to grant exemptions from merger regulations where appropriate.'

There are also proposals for the commission to scrap the system by which clients - through their lawyers - can obtain clearance for mergers before they actually go ahead and complete them.

As Ms Golding says: 'This will put much more pressure on the lawyers to be absolutely certain of the competition situation on a merger before the corporate transaction goes ahead.'

Nevertheless, these developments are likely to keep up a steady work flow.

Ms Golding comments: 'Even if the commission rolls back some decision-making to the member states, that will not mean that the law does not remain EC law, and therefore the need for lawyers on the ground in Brussels will be just as great.'

Mr McQuail draws attention to another change in the competition law environment.

'There has been a huge increase in the coverage of competition cases by the media,' he says, adding that this puts more pressure on the parties to have a public strategy in mind when campaigning - or lobbying - on competition issues.

Lovells' Brussels-based public policy department reports to the London head office.

'The main thing is understanding how to deal with the institutions, and recognising how the issues are best addressed,' Mr McQuail says.

He stresses that high-profile lobbying does not always pay off: 'During the Volvo-Scania merger negotiations, the Swedish prime minister lobbied the commission, but it didn't work; sometimes the commission just doesn't like it.'

So, how does the lobbying side of the job work? 'We try to get on with people.

You keep in touch with people - this is a small community - and learn what's going on.

Everyone knows people in the commission.

If you have a case coming up and you don't know the case-handler, you find out who's dealing with it.'

Much lobbying-style work is either done in association with specialist lobbying outfits or the American Chamber of Commerce, whose lack of direct national interest in European legislation can give it an upper hand in presenting proposals to the commission.

There are also many trade associations - such as steel's Eurofare and the paper industry's SEPI which have bases in Brussels and assist with lobbying.

On more legal matters, the Law Society's Brussels office and the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe are very active in lobbying.

There are around 30 English firms with offices in Brussels, and issues such as Belgium's exclusion of law firms from paying VAT is a real and immediate problem for them.

'Having said that, influencing people is another matter,' Mr McQuail says.

'I don't think it's easy to influence people.

Take the GE/Honeywell proposed merger - despite all the pressure put on the commission to approve that merger by the parties, it was still blocked.'

If Lovells's Brussels office has a City firm feel to it, Renouf & Co, the specialist European firm of solicitor Michael Renouf, is clear that it has a different image.

His office conference room - containing a large map of the world - overlooks the commission headquarters and the member states' offices, reflecting Mr Renouf's enthusiasm for Europe.

He is mainly involved with deals and commercial transactions, not competition law, and spends much of his time lobbying the commission on aspects of regulation on behalf of clients.

The lobbying is done to chime in with the workings of the commission, he says.

When proposals are made and consultations are taken, he will present his clients' arguments by letters sent to the commission and meetings with MEPs.

For example, in 2000, he lobbied the European Parliament on behalf of a Welsh company which was affected by draft legislation aimed at controlling the manufacture of ozone-depleting substances.

'When I went to the European Parliament for meetings, I was told "you're too late".

I told them "I'm not coming too late as a lobbyist, I am coming early as a prospective litigant," explaining that if the rule change I was requesting was not taken on board, my clients would seek a legal remedy.'

It worked, and he says it demonstrates the particular advantages of understanding the legal issues in influencing the course of legislation, and the fact that 'Brussels is more responsive than Whitehall to dynamic lobbying requests'.

Mr Renouf laments the lack of understanding of Brussels he finds among British businessmen: 'They haven't got a clue how Brussels works.' He gives the example of a group of Sunderland businessmen who recently appointed him to lobby for them on metals importation legislation.

Mr Renouf says: 'When they arrived they were intent on insulting the officials whom we were due to meet, but when they finally met with them and realised the hearing that they got - and that they were able to be openly critical with these officials - they changed their tune, saying "we would never have been given a hearing like that in Whitehall".'

The problem, he says, is that the media is not presenting Brussels in a fair light.

But he maintains the problem also extends to British lawyers, who need more awareness and training on matters of European law.

Mr Renouf is taking his campaign seriously, and has just been elected to the Law Society Council to represent EU matters.

Apart from the mergers of European outfits in Brussels, US firms are beefing up their presence on the ground.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton may be an old stalwart of the Brussels scene, having arrived in the 1960s, but other developments this year make the point: Wilmer Cutler & Pickering bagging former World Trade Organisation division head Claus Dieter Ehlermann for its Brussels office, and McGuire Woods poaching two Stanbrook & Hooper partners when that firm merged with fellow Belgian practice Platteeuw de Witte.

Mr McQuail says: 'It would be foolish to be complacent about the arrival of US practices.

There are a lot of firms moving in on the market and you do not need a huge staff to compete here.'

With US firms increasing their presence and large number of foreign firms already within the city, it is sometimes easy to forget that Brussels already has a well-established Belgian legal community which services Belgian local financial interests as much as the towering European institutions.

Gilson de Rouvreux De Bluts & Associes is a good example.

Apparently unaffected by the trend among Anglo-US firms for big offices covering all the disciplines, and located on the embassy-lined Avenue Franklin Roosevelt - well away from the hullabaloo of the European institutions' focus near Place Schuman - De Bluts is the Belgian representative of Eurolegal, a network of European firms with individual member firms in 17 countries covering the whole of Europe.

De Bluts is a small practice, with only seven partners.

But Eurolegal provides it with a steady stream of referral work and enables its clients to have a handle on Brussels affairs.

Partner Michel Mahillon - who recently visited London for Eurolegal's annual conference - explains that the firm tends to act for smaller and medium-sized enterprises in Brussels and France, but he is currently dealing with a shipping matter affecting Marseilles and Antwerp for another member firm.

Caroline Armitage, head of commercial with ASB Law, the south-east based firm that is one of Eurolegal's five English members, says: 'Our main use for De Bluts is local law advice for cross-border work.

For example, if a client is buying a European company, the legal advice required to deal with Belgian side of the acquisition - assets and employees.'

From the biggest to smallest firms - whether through European associations or dedicated offices - Brussels is long past the stage of being home to one man and his suitcase.

At the very least, you will need a large trunk.