Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has strengthened its London competition team with the hire of Peter Freeman QC, the former chairman of the Competition Commission.

Freeman's arrival, which is scheduled for next month (1 November), will take the number of senior lawyers in the US firm's London competition practice to four. He will join the office as a senior consultant, working alongside partners Maurits Dolmans, Romano Subiotto QC and Nicholas Levy.

Freeman joined the Competition Commission in May 2003 and became its chairman in 2006. He recently concluded his work on the Commission's review of the BAA airports case, before retiring in July this year. The final ruling in the case saw BAA required to sell off Stansted followed by either Glasgow or Edinburgh airports.

Before joining the Commission, Freeman led the EU and competition group at Simmons & Simmons, where he was a partner for 25 years.

Cleary managing partner Mark Leddy commented: "[Freeman] is one of the best-known and most experienced antitrust lawyers in the UK, and will complement the existing strengths of our London competition practice."

Dolmans added: "The London competition practice has really taken off over the past year. We are dealing with a wide variety of matters under UK and EU law, from merger control to horizontal and vertical agreements and unilateral conduct, in a range of industries."

Earlier this year Cleary's London competition team advised Stanley Black & Decker on its $1.2bn (£753m) acquisition of Swedish company Niscayah. Subiotto led the firm's team alongside fellow competition partner Jeremy Calsyn in Washington DC.