Xavier Boutin is a competition expert with over twenty years of experience in the assessment of competition cases, business strategies and the evaluation of public policies, including state aid. He is recognised as a Thought Leader in competition economics by Who’s Who Legal.
Dr Boutin’s experience spans a wide variety of high-level antitrust, merger and state aid cases, including in front of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). He has also worked on various policy issues, including 101 and 102 guidelines, State Aid Modernisation, food and retail and numerous others. With significant experience of Art. 102 cases as both an enforcer and a
consultant, he recently had a particular focus on antitrust in digital platforms.
Dr Boutin has led the assessment in challenging mergers both as a consultant and public enforcer across sectors including energy, oil and gas, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), media, information technology (IT), mining/quarrying and construction.
Before joining BRG, Dr Boutin was a founding partner at the economic consultancy Positive Competition. He previously held an expert role in a consulting firm and also spent almost eight years in the chief economist team of the European Commission’s (EC) Directorate-General for Competition (DG Comp).
Dr. Boutin contributed to the 102 guidance paper, the 101 horizontal guidelines and Block Exemption Regulation (BER), as well as on policy initiatives in the food chain and across competitiveness of the European industry. He also contributed to the State Aid Modernisation, particularly in the areas of research and development and innovation (R&D&I) and regional aid. Further, Dr Boutin was an influential proponent of the obligation to evaluate state aid schemes and the lead author of the corresponding guidance documents.
Dr Boutin is a founder and boardmember of l’Entente, the association of French-speaking competition law practitioners in Brussels. He is fluent in English, French and Polish.
