WASHINGTON: APCO Worldwide has broadened its mergers and acquisitions, antitrust and competition offering by hiring Cecilio Madero as senior counsel and Rachel Brandenburger as global senior adviser for competition and regulatory policy.
The firm hired Madero and Brandenburger to help clients overcome the regulatory and communications challenges of high-profile, complex M&A and antitrust investigations in global business hubs, according to an APCO statement. They will both focus on merger control, antitrust investigations and litigation, state aid, cartels and foreign investment.
Madero and Brandenburger will work with APCO’s team of experts in M&A, antitrust and competition and litigation and crisis management, spanning Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, London, New York, Rome, Tokyo and Washington. Benjamin Faull leads the global M&A, antitrust and competition offer.
Madero has spent more than 30 years with the Directorate-General for Competition, the European Commission department responsible for E.U. antitrust law and policy. Most recently, he was deputy director general of DG Competition.
Brandenburger was formerly special international adviser to the U.S. Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, based in Washington, DC; a partner in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, based in Brussels and London; and a senior adviser and foreign legal consultant to Hogan Lovells in New York.
This month, APCO acquired management consulting firm Gagen MacDonald, effective Tuesday.
APCO posted a 21% increase in revenue globally to $172 million and 19% increase to $85 million in the U.S. in 2021, according to PRWeek’s Agency Business Report 2022. The agency will celebrate its 40th anniversary at the end of this year.