Sarah Beeston
Sarah Beeston leads the European and Competition Law practice of Van Doorne. She is admitted to the bar in both England and Wales and the Netherlands and has also worked for extensive periods in Brussels and Paris. Her international experience adds an extra dimension to her legal advice and approach, which is highly valued by clients.
Sarah specialises in European and national competition law including the prohibitions of restrictive agreements, abuse of dominance, state aid and the merger control rules.
Sarah is very active in the health care sector and co-founder and chairman of the Health Care Compliance Association.
Sarah is frequently recommended in independent international surveys, including Chambers Europe and Legal 500 EMEA. Sarah was awarded the ILO Client Choice Award for competition law in the Netherlands in both 2011 and 2012.
Publications
- Court of Justice unsympathetic towards elevator cartelists, Lexology, October 2013
- Anticompetitive object of exclusive purchasing clause; Dutch Supreme Court and Advocate General beg to differ on EU law, Lexology, November 2013
- Extra concentration control regime for Dutch healthcare sector, Lexology, November 2013
- You win some, you lose some ' or how the European Commission intends to minimize rescuing and restructuring aid, Lexology, November 2013
- ACM defends its objections to the Dutch energy agreement, Lexology, November 2013
- Fine me once, shame on me; fine me twice, shame on you!, Lexology, November 2013
- Consumer electronics revisited; European Commission raids offices of Samsung Electronics, Philips and Media, Lexology, December 2013
- Déjà vu: fishy business in the North Sea shrimp sector, Lexology, December 2013
- Merger of Competition Authorities: is less really more: A Dutch perspective, Competition Law Insight, May 2013
- Attracting business. The Netherlands is a popular forum for international cartel damages claims, Competition Law Insight, April 2012
- Fining the Dutch Association of General Practitioners, Competition Law Insight, March 2012
- The Netherlands - the jurisdiction for international cartel damages claims? Euromoney Competition and Antitrust Review 2012
- Dutch chapter of international comparative guide to merger control, Global Legal Group, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013
- Dutch chapter of international comparative guide to private enforcement of competition law, 2009
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Education
- University of Surrey
- College of Law, London
- University of Amsterdam
1 Contributions by Sarah Beeston
PRACTICE NOTES
The Netherlands Merger Control 2025: ACM Procedures, Thresholds, Healthcare/NZa, Proposed Call‑in Powers, Media Plurality Remedies, and Interaction with EU FSR and Dutch FDI Screening
NOTE—to see whether notification thresholds in the Netherlands and across the globe are met, see further: Where to Notify
1. Have there been any recent developments regarding the Dutch merger control regime and are any updates/developments expected in the coming year? Are there any other ‘hot’ merger control issues with the ACM?
Media
Following the Authority for Consumers and Market’s (ACM) prohibition of RTL’s proposed purchase of Talpa (two players in the Dutch television media market) on 30 January 2023, DPG Media announced plans to acquire RTL and filed the deal with the ACM. On 17 May 2024, the ACM concluded that the transaction merited deeper scrutiny and therefore referred the matter to the second (‘licence’) phase. On 18 July 2024, the parties submitted their application for the requisite licence. On 27 June 2025, the ACM issued conditional clearance for the merger in its DPG/RTL decision, imposing stringent behavioural commitments. Notably, the ACM factored media plurality into its competition analysis—an innovative development in Dutch merger control practice...
Competition
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