Francion Brooks

Solicitor, Bristows

Francion specialises in EU and UK competition law. She has experience of both contentious and non-contentious matters, particularly for clients in the technology, life sciences and consumer products sectors.

Francion has acted in a number of FRAND disputes including for Samsung in the Unwired Planet litigation, and more recently in disputes for ZTE and Philips. She was also a member of the team that successfully defended Google in an abuse of dominance claim brought by Streetmap. Francion has also advised on the competition law aspects of a life sciences arbitration.

Francion advises on issues arising from commercial arrangements including settlement, distribution and licensing agreements across all sectors. She also advises on competition law and GSCOP issues arising in the retail and FMCG sector, including in relation to the recent Tesco/Booker and Sainsbury’s/Asda mergers.

Francion has spent time on secondment at Google and at the antitrust teams of two Chinese law firms based in Shanghai. She is the resident lawyer for the British Brands Group’s competition law compliance training programme, and also teaches the MBL workshop on IP Licensing and Competition Law. Francion is a frequent commentator on the intersection of competition and IP law as featured in the Bristows’ blog, the CLIP Board.

Contributed to

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Competition law in copyright exploitation—UK

Practice notes

This Practice Note examines competition law in relation to copyright exploitation under UK law. It covers exhaustion of rights and parallel trade including an examination of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Chapter 1 of the Competition Act 1998 (CA 1998) and copyright licensing. Vertical agreements and exclusive licences are considered covering absolute territorial protection, geo-blocking, tying and bundling, as are horizontal agreements covering collective licensing and joint selling. The relationship between copyright exploitation and Article 102 TFEU and CA 1998, Chapter II is also considered.