Justin Woodward is Associate Director* in the London office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a member of the firm’s competition and antitrust practice. He brings with him extensive international competition experience in both regulatory and in-house roles.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Justin was based in Cairo, leading for over ten years the in-house competition law advisory team at the largest independent steel producer in Egypt, the Middle East and North Africa. He was instrumental in establishing a fully bespoke and effective in-house compliance regime, while also acting as lead adviser on all aspects of competition law and risk mitigation in what was an uncertain, evolving and highly challenging regulatory and market environment.
Justin has also acquired extensive competition authority experience at both UK and European levels.
At the UK level and before his move to Cairo, Justin spent six years at the UK’s competition authority (Office of Fair Trading, now Competition and Markets Authority), most recently as Assistant Director in its Policy Division, inputting into a wide range of competition policy work, while also providing guidance to case-teams across the authority’s competition division on investigation techniques and outcomes. He also acted as Chair of the UK’s Concurrency Working Group, comprising the OFT and UK sectoral regulators with powers to enforce competition law. Before his move to the OFT’s Policy Division, Justin led and inputted into a range of UK competition investigations and related appeal work in the consumer goods sector.
Before joining the Office of Fair Trading, Justin spent four years as case-handler at the Directorate-General for Competition of the European Commission. Working in DG Comp’s Services Division, he acted as both lead investigator and case-team member on various high-profile cases, notably in the sports and recycling sectors. He was lead case-handler on DG Comp’s investigation into ticketing arrangements for the 1998 Football World Cup (infringement decision, abuse of a dominant position), lead case-handler responsible for the competition assessment and ultimate clearance of agreements entered into by Valpak, the UK’s largest packaging recycling scheme, and joint lead-case handler assessing the regulations of and agreements entered into by the motor racing body FIA (Fédération International de l’Automobile).
Justin is degree qualified in law (1987) and has met the requirements of the Law Society’s Solicitor’s Final Examination (1991).
* Justin Woodward is not an attorney and is not admitted to practice law.
Credentials
Education:
- King's College London - 2001 Postgrad EU Competition Law
- Chester College of New England - 1991 Law Society Finals
- University of Southampton - 1987 Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.)