Milbank LLP is pleased to announce that Antitrust partner Fiona Schaeffer was awarded “Competition Lawyer of the Year” at the 2026 Global Competition Review (GCR) Awards. This award, which is open to competition lawyers globally, recognizes the competition lawyer who, through superior skill, practical judgement and excellence in client service, has demonstrated their place among the very best in the field.
This award reflects Ms. Schaeffer’s distinguished career as one of the preeminent antitrust practitioners globally and recognizes her exceptional leadership on some of the most consequential and closely watched competition matters of the past year. Among her representations in 2025, Ms. Schaeffer advised U. S. Steel in its landmark $14.9 billion merger with Nippon Steel Corporation, a transaction that required navigating a rare convergence of antitrust, foreign investment, and industrial policy considerations in a US election year and across multiple jurisdictions.
Ms. Schaeffer also served as antitrust counsel to LS Power on the $12 billion sale of its natural gas generation facilities and virtual power plant platform to NRG Energy Inc. The transaction, which received unconditional approval in January 2026, is one of several recently consummated transactions in the energy and digital infrastructure space. The US antitrust enforcers are expected to continue intensely scrutinizing these industries and transactions given their importance to power generation, electricity pricing and the buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
An international antitrust lawyer with more than 30 years of experience practicing on both sides of the Atlantic, Ms. Schaeffer advises clients on their most complex strategic transactions and “bet-the-company” investigations. Since joining Milbank in 2014 as the firm’s first antitrust partner in the United States, Ms. Schaeffer has grown the team and attracted talented partners to build the practice into an internationally recognized antitrust powerhouse.
The GCR Awards, now in their 16th year, are among the most prestigious honors in the global antitrust community, recognizing the world’s leading competition lawyers, economists and the most significant matters of the past year. Learn more about GCR here.
