Rene Frolov, the former Head of Competition at Tark Grunte Sutkiene’s Estonia office, has joined the partnership of Fort Law Offices as Head of Competition in Estonia.
Frolov is an expert on Estonian competition law, with more than 10 years of experience in the field. According to a statement by Fort, Frolov’s "specialism is in antitrust (cartel and dominance) investigations before the Estonian Competition Authority, competition compliance in both regulated or non-regulated industries and complex merger work. Over the years, Rene has been involved in a number of landmark cases, such as the ‘milk-cartel’ and ‘vodka-cartel’ cases that ended successfully for his clients. Recently Rene helped Eesti Post to secure a positive court ruling in a rare civil suit against allegations of abuse of dominance. Rene has also advised both private and public sector clients on application of EU State aid rules, e.g. represented them before the European Commission.” Fort claims that “a key part of Rene’s work is in pre-transaction competition assessment (‘mapping’), i.e. providing firms with high-level views on feasibility of specific transaction scenarios and expected regulatory obstacles in merger investigations.”
Frolov’s work with Tark Grunte Sutkiene included a successful representation of AS Eesti Post, the Estonian national postal service provider, in a competition matter before the Estonian Supreme Court (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on September 17, 2015), and providing notice to the Estonian Competition Authority of Nordic Capital’s acquisition of the Full Service business from ABB Group (as reported by CEE Legal Matters on September 29, 2014).
Frolov worked as an Attorney at Lextal from January 2004 to February 2009, at which point he became the Head of Competition/Antitrust in Tark Grunte Sutkiene’s Estonia office. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 2003, then received an LL.M. as a Fulbright Scholar from the University of Arizona in 2012.
“The growing demand of our clients for strategic and comprehensive, but also smart and practical, advice in complex transactions, dispute resolution and everyday advisory has driven us to strengthen our expertise in all key areas,” said Kuldar-Jaan Torokoff, Managing Partner of Fort's Tallinn office. "Competition law expertise is of increased strategic importance to our international, pan-Baltic and local corporate clients in transactions and disputes, but, above all, as a key part in their increased focus on ensuring compliance.” He continued: "Rene’s reputation, experience and track-record in all of these areas is excellent and also well-known. His expertise – competition law – will add a crucial element to our portfolio of services. We are extremely pleased to welcome Rene to our dedicated and result-driven team of experts."
“I’ve kept a close eye on Fort ever since they entered the pan-Baltic market in 2013 – and I’ve been impressed,” said Frolov. "When I was approached to join Fort, to combine my expertise in competition law with theirs in M&A, dispute resolution and corporate advisory, it sounded right from the start – the potential for synergies, and raising the bar in legal services, is there. I’ve worked with all the Estonian partners before; I know how passionate, professional, result-driven and efficient they are. We share core values and have a common understanding of what a ‘user-friendly’ legal advisory service looks like – I can’t wait to get started."
