Anne Robert

ANNE ROBERT has extensive experience advising multinational clients on EU antitrust/competition, regulatory, and policy matters.

She provides strategic counsel to companies in the context of complex cartel and abuse of dominance investigations before the European Commission and national competition authorities. She frequently represents clients in high-stakes litigation proceedings before the EU Courts. She, for example, secured an award-winning victory for a client in a proceeding involving the EU free movement and e-commerce rules.

Anne also has particular experience representing clients in merger control cases and advising them on State aid and antitrust compliance issues.

She is a member of the Executive Committee of W@Competition, a platform for women competition professionals, and is actively involved in the Women’s Life Sciences Network (WLSN), a platform for high-level discussions of life sciences law and policy developments. Anne is responsible for the antitrust supervision for each of the Sidley Life Sciences Legal Networks. She is also a regular speaker and contributor to conferences and has published widely on EU competition law and policy issues.

Anne has earned acknowledgement in industry ranking guides:

• Chambers Europe 2025 — Named as Up and Coming : Competition: EU, where clients note “it is an absolute joy to work with Anne”, “she is great; she inspires a lot of confidence and it is very, very clear that she is an expert in EU competition law”, “[she] is responsive and overall a real team player.”
  
• Legal 500 EMEA (Belgium) 2025 — Recommended in Competition: EU and global, where clients state “Partner Anne Robert is a star. Her knowledge and experience with competition law is vast; she is able to navigate complex matters across jurisdictions.”
  
• Legal 500 EMEA (Belgium) 2024 — Recommended in Competition: EU and global. The 2023 edition recommended Anne for her standout role in pharma sector antitrust litigation.
  
• Law.com International’s 2024 — Named “Rising Stars: Europe’s Best Up-and-Coming Female Lawyers” list.
  
• W@’s Five Star Women Competition Professionals 2022 — Named a “Rising Star” in the Private Practice category.

She has also won the “Antitrust & Competition Lawyer of the Year” award at the Women in Business Law EMEA Awards 2024.

She gained first hand in-house experience during a secondment to the Group Antitrust team of a multinational pharmaceutical company in Basel, Switzerland.

Anne is fluent in English, French, Italian, German, and Luxembourgish.

Anne’s recent experience includes representing:

• Doctipharma in litigation proceedings before the EU Court of Justice. The Court of Justice ruled that Doctipharma’s “information society service” for the sale of non-prescription medicinal products online has to be allowed (Case C-606/21).
• Les Laboratoires Servier in ongoing litigation proceedings before the EU Court of Justice involving an alleged breach of EU competition rules (Cases T-691/14, C-201/19 P and C-176/19 P). The Sidley team won an award for “Impact Deal of the Year” at the 2021 LMG Life Sciences Awards for this matter.
• A pharmaceutical company in several parallel investigations by national competition authorities involving allegations of an abuse of dominance, including by charging an excessive and unfair price.
• Shop-Apotheke B.V. in a landmark victory before the EU Court of Justice relating to national advertising rules applicable to pharmacists and to over-the-counter medicinal products sold online and their compatibility with EU free movement and e-commerce rules.
• DocMorris N.V., on a variety of EU law and policy matters relating to restrictions of cross-border online sales of prescription medicinal products.
• Bayer CropScience in its appeal before the EU Court of Justice regarding EU restrictions on the use of neonicotinoid substances in plant protection products.

Anne serves as Brussels co-chair of SidleyWomen.