BRG announced the opening of offices in Rome and Milan as it expands its European footprint with a team of economists focused on regulated industries, led by Managing Director Dr Francesco Lo Passo, who joins with Managing Director Marcella Fantini and Associate Director Alessandro Greco.

Lo Passo has more than 20 years’ experience as a consultant specialising in regulation, privatisation and restructuring with a focus on network industries, drawing on his time as a member of Italy’s Treasury Council of Experts, at the OECD Advisory Group on Privatization and as senior advisor on energy to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He commented: “Joining BRG allows me to offer my clients access to one of the biggest teams of competition economists in Europe, along with a global network of industry and arbitration experts. I have previously collaborated with many of my new colleagues and am very excited to launch this new phase of my practice with them.”

Fantini added: “BRG’s entrepreneurial culture is a perfect fit for my practice which is increasingly focused on new, developing infrastructures. These projects, and the regulatory frameworks in which they operate, are taking shape all over the world, so being able to leverage BRG’s global network of experts and offices is hugely exciting. Closer to home, my ongoing regulatory due diligence work supporting refinancing or merging parties has clear links to the work of BRG’s offices in Brussels and London.”

Professor Kai-Uwe Kühn, former chief economist at the Directorate-General for Competition at the European Commission and a BRG managing director based in Brussels and London, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Francesco, Marcella and their team. It is a great pleasure to work with them again on matters from utilities and regulatory issues to state aid and competition cases. The combination of their group in Rome and Milan with our Italian team in Brussels around our expert Dr Mario Denni creates a highly attractive proposition for the Italian market.”

Dr David S. Evans, a BRG managing director based in Boston who has worked extensively on competition matters in the EU, noted: “I’ve known and respected Francesco for more than two decades, and I am thrilled to be reunited with him, Marcella and their team. They are excellent additions to BRG’s team of economists.”

This announcement follows BRG’s recent addition of a group of competition economists to the experts who launched the practice in Brussels and Paris in September 2023. BRG now has four offices in Continental Europe in addition to a substantial presence in London. BRG numbers almost 1,600 professionals worldwide.