Vanessa Turner is a partner in Allen & Overy LLP’s Brussels office, also working in the London office.

She advises clients on merger clearance (Phases I and II at EU and national member state level), cartels and other antitrust matters before the European Commission (EC) and other regulators across a wide range of sectors.

Vanessa has a wealth of experience from the financial services sector and from the EC. Before joining Allen & Overy, Vanessa was general counsel and executive vice president, company secretary at Visa Europe, and subsequently a cabinet member of the European Commissioner for Competition. In that latter role, she advised Neelie Kroes, the then Commissioner, on a range of antitrust and merger cases and policy, including leading IT cases, airline mergers, cartels and cooperation with other competition authorities around the world, in particular, the US FTC and DOJ. Before joining the EC, Vanessa spent eight years as a partner in another leading Brussels antitrust practice.

Vanessa is listed by Global Competition Review as one of the world's leading competition lawyers. She is a solicitor (England and Wales), Rechtsanwältin (Düsseldorf Bar) and a member of the Belgian Bar (E list), the American Bar Association (antitrust section), the International Bar Association (antitrust committee) and the Confederation of British Industry (competition panel).

She speaks English, German and French fluently with a good command of Dutch. Vanessa received her LLM from the Institute for European Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and her BSc (Hons) from the University of Surrey.

A source quoted inChambers Europe(2018) notes that Vanessa is "a very down-to-earth lawyer with a no-nonsense, practical approach", while another is "impressed by her understanding of how to present things to the Commission".

Allen & Overy's antitrust and competition practice comprises over 120 specialists located across Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. The practice advises corporate clients and financial institutions on their global antitrust policies, litigation and regulatory strategies and has acted on some of the highest-profile and most complex cases in recent years.

WWL says: Vanessa Turner is an “excellent practitioner” who wins praise for the depth of her understanding of merger clearance and cartel issues.