Anna is a Competition partner and the Head of the Brussels office.
Anna has a broad competition practice, including advising on mergers, cartels and market investigations. She has dealt extensively with the European Commission (EC) and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), as well as other regulators around the world.
Highlights include advising:
- British Airways in relation to:
- the CMA investigation into its transatlantic alliance with American Airlines
- the air cargo antitrust proceedings, the multi-jurisdictional air cargo litigation, and on its appeals to the European Courts
- Figma on the CMA and EC reviews of its proposed $20 billion acquisition by Adobe
- GlaxoSmithKline on its appeal to the General Court in relation to the EC State aid decision on the Controlled foreign company group financing tax exemption
- International Airlines Group on its acquisitions of Aer Lingus, bmi and Air Europa
- ITV on the CMA’s investigation in relation to the purchase of freelance services in the production and broadcasting of sports content in the UK
- Richemont on the combination of Yoox Net-a-Porter and Farfetch, and its broader strategic alliance with Farfetch and Alibaba
- Salesforce on its $15.7 billion acquisition of Tableau Software and its $27.7 billion acquisition of Slack
- UnitedHealth on the CMA Phase 2 unconditional clearance for its £1.2 billion takeover of EMIS.
Anna is recognised as a leading competition lawyer by Chambers, Legal 500 and Who’s Who Legal. She has also been recognised by W@Competition as a ‘Five Star Women Competition Professional’ and been previously named as “Lawyer of the Year - Under 40” by Global Competition Review. She is a member of the Brussels Bar (A list), as well as being qualified as a solicitor (England and Wales).
Directories quote:
- "Anna is very practical, succinct and massively intelligent. She has got a really good way with top management. Anna is our go-to partner if there’s anything difficult." Chambers Europe, 2025
- "Anna Lyle-Smythe is a fantastic adviser. She is strategic, a pleasure to deal with and we always feel like we get the highest quality advice from her. She is one of our most trusted voices." Chambers Europe, 2025
- "Anna Lyle-Smythe is technically excellent and her client service and matter-handling skills are second to none." Chambers Europe, 2025