Ken Daly

KEN DALY, the managing partner of Sidley’s Brussels office and co-head of the Antitrust and Competition practice, focuses his practice on global merger clearances and on EU competition and EU regulatory matters across a wide variety of industries and business sectors, including film, music, media, broadcasting, professional and financial services, pharmaceuticals, sports, consumer goods, automotive parts, and transport.

Ken has over 25 years’ experience in competition law, including advising on European Commission investigations in mergers, cartel and abuse of dominance cases, advisory work in relation to selling practices and market behavior, and all aspects of competition litigation. He is an experienced advocate and has advised clients in a variety of high-profile cases before the European Commission and national competition authorities and has represented clients in litigation before the EU Courts and national courts of EU Member States.

In addition to his case work, a significant part of Ken’s practice relates to advising companies on how to interpret and navigate the EU’s law-making processes and regulatory regimes, including how to participate in the development of EU policy.  

The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (ILR) awarded Ken the “Research and Policy Award” for his work on third-party litigation financing and class actions, as well as helping guide ILR’s efforts in the EU and the UK at its 17th Annual Legal Reform Summit. Ken served a four-year term as Secretary General to the International Court of Appeal of the world motorsports regulator, the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA).

Ken has written extensively on EU law and policy topics, including merger law, distribution, competition law criminalization, cartel enforcement, and sports law.

Strong leadership in advising clients has earned Ken acknowledgement in industry ranking guides:

• Chambers Europe 2025 — Ranked for Competition: EU where clients report that Ken “knows his area of the law, is very responsive to business needs and has quick turnaround times.” and that “he is really smart and gives advice in a way that is acceptable to any audience; you always know you are in safe hands.”
• Legal 500 EMEA (Belgium) 2023–2025 — Recommended for Competition: EU and global, where clients report that “working with Ken Daly is a real pleasure. He is practical in his advice and substantively capable in handling large global transactions” (2023), “Ken Daly is one of the best counsels I have ever worked with. Extremely knowledgeable in many areas of law, great analytical skills, excellent organizational capabilities, reliable and available!” (2025).
• Chambers Europe and Chambers Global Belgium 2019–2024 — Ranked for EU Competition where clients report that “He is a pleasure to work with, very practical, targets what you need and does it very efficiently.” and that “He is a superb lawyer and incredibly nice to work with.” (2024), “he doesn’t recommend things that are going to take more work than potential payoff; he is very good at finding efficient ways to deal with matters” (2022), “a gem of a lawyer who has our interests at heart and who is both highly dependable and super smart” (2023).
• Best Lawyers Belgium 2022 — Ranked for Competition and Antitrust, European Union, and Regulatory Law.
• Lexology Index 2021-2026 – Recommended for Competition.

Ken’s experience includes advising:

• DigiCert in the competition aspects of its Acquisition of Valimail.
• Siris Capital Group in the antitrust aspects of its US$591 Million Sale of Fiery.
• DigiCert in its Acquisition of Vercara.
• Clearlake Capital on the antitrust aspects of its Strategic Investment in Aptean.
• Clearlake Capital and Francisco Partners on antitrust aspects of it's US$2.1 Billion Acquisition of Software Integrity Group.
• Perforce Software on antitrust aspects of its Acquisition of Delphix.
• Coupang, Inc. on the antitrust aspects of its acquisition of the business and assets of fashion retailer Farfetch Holdings plc.
• Shenzhen Longsys Electronics Co., Ltd. in the antitrust aspects of its Acquisition of SMART Modular Technologies do Brasil.
• Siris Capital Group on the antitrust aspects of its acquisition of BearCom.
• Heritage Advisors, a global investor, on the antitrust aspect of its add-on investment in Fort Partners, a privately held Miami-based real estate and hospitality firm that develops and manages design-led hotels, resorts, and private residences.
• Blue Ocean Acquisition Corp. (NASDAQ: BOCN), a SPAC, on the antitrust aspects of its US$275 million business combination with TNL Mediagene.
• Clearlake Capital and Motive Partners-Backed BetaNXT on the competition aspects of its acquisition of Mediant Communications.
• CTM Group Inc., in the antitrust aspects of its acquisition of ScooterBug Best Lockers.
• Newfold Digital on the antitrust aspects of its acquisition of MarkMonitor™, an enterprise-level provider of domain management solutions, from Clarivate.
• Clearlake Capital Group, L.P.- and TA Associates-backed Kofax, a supplier of Intelligent Automation software for digital workflow transformation, on the antitrust aspects of its acquisition of Ephesoft Inc.
• On antitrust/competition aspects of Clearlake Capital’s US$1.875 billion sale of Brightly Software (a cloud-based asset management software platform) to Siemens.
• Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. in the antitrust aspects of its acquisition of Chelsea Football Club and related affiliates in a consortium co-led with Todd Boehly, Chairman and CEO of Eldridge. The acquisition was named “Private Equity Deal of the Year” at The Deal Awards 2022.
• On the antitrust aspects of Newfold Digital's acquisition of YITH, one of the largest independent sellers and developers of WooCommerce plugins and themes for WordPress.
• Confluence Technologies, Inc. in its US$500 million acquisition of Investment Metrics, a major provider of investment data, performance, analytics, and research software solutions.
• Thoma Bravo in a strategic investment by Permira in Motus, a Thoma Bravo portfolio company.
• Newfold Digital on its acquisition of Yoast B.V., the leading search engine optimization plugin provider for WordPress.
• Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. in its proposed US$5.2 billion acquisition of Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc.
• Symplr in strategic investment by Charlesbank Capital Partners.
• NetDocuments, a leading secure cloud-based content services and productivity platform in a strategic transaction with Warburg Pincus.
• Symplr in its acquisition of HealthcareSource HR Inc., a provider of talent management software for the healthcare industry, from Francisco Partners.
• Mavenir in connection with a US$500 million private placement by Koch Strategic Platforms, a subsidiary of Koch Investments Group.
• Clearlake Capital in connection with its significant equity investment in RSA Security LLC, a global provider of mission critical cybersecurity software and governance risk and compliance management software.
• Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. in its acquisition of Precisely together with TA Associates.
• Clearlake Capital Group L.P. in its acquisition of nThrive’s Technology Division from nThrive Holdings, LP, a portfolio company of Pamplona Capital Management. 
• Clearlake in the US$3 Billion Acquisition of Endurance, a provider of cloud-based platform solutions designed to help small- and medium-sized businesses succeed online.
• Symplr in the acquisition of TractManager, an Arsenal Capital Partners portfolio company. Symplr is a provider of global healthcare, governance, risk management, and compliance software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions backed by Clearlake Capital Group, L.P. and SkyKnight Capital.
• Dude Solutions Inc., a SaaS provider of cloud-based operations management software backed by Clearlake Capital Group, L.P., in the acquisition of the asset management platform Confirm®
• Affiliates of Siris Capital Group, LLC (sellers) and Pulse Secure, LLC (target company) in the sale of Pulse Secure, LLC to Ivanti, Inc. 
• Ivanti in the transaction. Ivanti, Inc. is a portfolio company of affiliates of Clearlake Capital Group, L.P.
• Ivanti, Inc. in its strategic co-investment by TA Associates.

• Law Society of Ireland
• American Bar Association
• Law Society of England and Wales