- Weil is hiring antitrust heavyweight Ingo Brinker together with rising star antitrust partner Niklas Brueggemann, bringing the total number of new partner hires in Germany to eight in less than six months.
- They will join a team of some of Germany’s most standout lawyers of their generation, including two of the most influential private equity names, Sebastian Pauls and Kamyar Abrar, who recently rejoined Weil as part of a strategy to build a market leading private equity team in Germany, as well as Benjamin Rapp and Florian Dehmel, both of whom add depth to the PE team through their expertise in transactional tax and employment law.
- Germany is the capstone of Weil’s pre-eminent European antitrust platform. Pioneered by European antitrust market-leader Jenine Hulsmann who leads the team in London, the platform has undergone rapid growth and comprises a Paris team led by Ning-Ly Seng and a Brussels team led by Niklas Maydell.
- Together with the market-leading antitrust practice in the US, they advise on the largest and most consequential matters globally.
- Other recent hires to Weil’s German offices include employment partner Florian Dehmel, tax partner Benjamin Rapp, private equity partners Susanne Decker and Andreas Holzgreve and private equity counsel Julia Schöfer.
MUNICH, 21 APRIL 2026: International law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP today announced the continued expansion of its German operation with the addition of antitrust partners Ingo Brinker and Niklas Brueggemann.
Ingo Brinker is one of antitrust’s most influential lawyers who has been a Tier 1 practitioner for over 20 years. He advises on German and European antitrust law, with a particular focus on merger control proceedings, cartel and criminal investigations, follow-on damages actions and litigation, as well as dominance and unilateral conduct matters. He has led numerous significant cases before the German Federal Cartel Office, the European Commission and other international competition authorities, including in the UK, United States, France, Portugal and Spain, and has represented clients before the European General Court, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the German antitrust courts. He will join from White & Case.
Niklas Brueggemann is one of the rising stars advising across the full spectrum of competition law, particularly on matters at the intersection of technology and antitrust. Drawing on experience at EU and national levels, in private practice and as a public official, he counsels clients on EU and German antitrust law and tech regulation, merger control, foreign direct investment screening and civil antitrust litigation, and his practice centers on transactional and multi-stakeholder aspects of competition enforcement. Niklas has worked on policy and enforcement matters at the European Commission and the German Federal Government, as well as represented clients in a variety of matters before national and EU competition authorities, sectoral regulators, and courts. He will join from Latham.
“We are thrilled to welcome Ingo and Niklas, whose deep experience across EU and German competition law further strengthens our ability to advise clients on complex, multi-jurisdictional matters. We are seeing significant momentum in Germany, and the continued growth of our practice reflects both strong client demand and the success of our strategy in this market,” said Weil Executive Partner Barry Wolf.
Britta Grauke, Co-Managing Partner of Weil’s German offices said, “Ingo and Niklas are extremely highly regarded partners who advise on bet-the-company matters that require extensive experience and judgment. They bring heavyweight credentials in merger control and European antitrust litigation, at a time when Germany remains one of the most active jurisdictions in Europe for cartel damages claims and follow-on actions.”
Weil’s European Head of Antitrust, Jenine Hulsmann said, “As we continue to advise on the most complex transactions in the AI, technology, industrials and defense sectors, demand for sophisticated, integrated antitrust advice is among our clients’ most pressing needs. Our clients rely on us to manage the ever-changing regulatory environment and provide them with strategic antitrust advice and insights across multiple regimes. With their close connections to the European Commission and German agencies, Ingo and Niklas provide further depth to our top-tier global antitrust practice.”
Ingo Brinker added, “Weil has one of the most dynamic practices in Germany now, and the success of its European antitrust bench is phenomenal. Niklas and I are delighted to be joining.”
Complementing its top-tier US practice, Weil has built a formidable antitrust platform in Europe – expanding eightfold in less than five years through the strategic recruitment of the brightest antitrust lawyers. The global team is at the forefront of AI and technology and advises on the largest and most complex multi-billion-pound global antitrust matters. Recent highlights include successfully advising Boeing as global antitrust counsel on its $4.7 billion acquisition of Spirit AeroSystems, ChampionX on its successful $7.8 billion deal with SLB, Microsoft on a range of AI investments and Microsoft as global antitrust counsel in the successful completion of its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc.
