pioneer of European competition law

In the courts he went into battle on behalf of the Ford motor company, which in 1982 wanted to stop the import into Britain of cheaper versions of its cars from West Germany. He also represented IBM in a protracted case over how much information the company should make available to competitors wanting to produce compatible “peripherals” such as disk drives and printers.

During that case he was based in IBM’s Paris headquarters, but was dismayed that even in France the American company enforced a strict no-alcohol policy. “There was a lack of appreciation that after six o’clock in the evening the finest minds of the English Bar cannot function without what came to be known as ‘cold tea’,” recalled a colleague of the Famous Grouse served in his office.

Back in Britain he represented Chanel when the Monopolies and Mergers Commission investigated the company’s refusal to sell its products in Tesco or Superdrug, claiming that doing so would damage its carefully cultivated image. To make his point Lever turned up one day dressed in “a very old and nasty set of dungarees”, telling the horrified panel: “If you can really be put off by this image, think how Chanel feel, having spent all this money on developing their image.” He won.

He believed in the hands-on discovery of facts. When representing brewers he visited their premises to sample their wares, while a case involving bookmakers required a day at the races and placing a few bets.

Given Lever’s closeness to European law, he was well placed to pick holes in all sides of the Brexit debate. He undoubtedly had misgivings about the economic and political situation in Europe, arguing in a 2011 letter to The Times that Germany’s dominance meant it should leave the euro and that President Sarkozy of France “seems to be capable of unbounded mischief”.

However, back in 2013 he foresaw that seceding from the EU would create a situation that Britain had for 400 years sought to avoid, namely a continent dominated by a single European power. “It is, at every level, of immense importance to the UK that the continent, of which we are offshore islands, should remain firmly anchored to decent, democratic principles,” he argued in vain.

Jeremy Frederick Lever was born in London in 1933 the elder of two sons of Arnold Lever, who was in the fabric industry, and Elizabeth (née Nathan), a physiotherapist. His brother Timothy, a retired farmer, survives him. They were raised at Denham, Buckinghamshire, but during the war spent a couple of years in New York. Their return ship to Britain in 1942 was hit by a torpedo that failed to detonate.

At 14 Lever entered a philatelic competition with an entry based on Sarawak, now part of Malaysia. Short of material, he wrote to the Rajah of Sarawak requesting additional stamps and received a personal reply that was incorporated into his prizewinning entry.

A place at Lancing College was withdrawn because of antisemitism and he won a scholarship to Bradfield College. In chapel he made clear his limited faith “to all concerned, including the Almighty”, by not reciting the Creed. During National Service with the Royal Artillery in Kenya he lost much of his hearing to loud artillery fire and malaria.

He read PPE at University College, Oxford, before switching to law and specialising in restrictive practices, then in its infancy in Britain. This suited his interest in economics and his deafness, which would have made the cut-and-thrust of traditional advocacy problematic. He enjoyed fencing and was a member of the Oxford Union, where in 1956 he proposed a motion calling for the abolition of the Third Programme, a debate that was broadcast on the Third Programme. He was elected president for Hilary Term 1957.

That same year he was called to the Bar and elected a fellow of All Souls College, a position he held for six decades. “More or less every term-time weekend of those 60 years would have found Jeremy in the college,” said Professor Sir John Vickers, warden of All Souls.

In 1961 Lever joined what became Monckton Chambers, which since 2012 has sponsored an annual lecture in his name. His first major case involved the distant-water fisheries industry and in 1962 he appeared for the Publishers Association in a hearing into the Net Book Agreement, which controlled the price of books for six decades.

As head of chambers, he went round the building on Friday evenings to ensure the radiators were turned off. A colleague who sat in his room for 20 years observed that when work fell short of expectations, “there would only be a shaking of the head, intake of breath and chewing of the pencil”. Others recall him at his round table, with its wooden legs carved into the shapes of lions’ feet, glass apple in hand, pondering legal issues and calling for the “instruments of torture”: a supply of lined paper, sticky tape, a ruler, Tippex and various coloured ballpoint pens.

Another recalled writing a memo on some economic point and Lever returning a beautifully written manuscript note 20 minutes later, saying: “Is this what you were trying to say?” He was punctilious in his use of language, even subjecting the agenda for chambers meetings to his editorial pen, but laughed off his own minor infelicities, saying: “Consistency is the hallmark of the mediocre mind.”

On one occasion he represented Unilever in a case concerning whether modern detergents were better than those of ten years earlier. He recalled that the commission chairman was almost blind and when handed one dishcloth washed in modern Persil and another in the old formula had to ask: “Which is which?” His unpublished memoranda from a case involving Unilever’s proposed merger with Allied Breweries reveal his sense of mischief in the suggestion that a merger would bring significant public interest benefits because of Allied’s access to Unilever’s in-house butler.

Lever’s book, The Law of Restrictive Practices and Resale Price Maintenance (1964), was well received and he also contributed to several editions of Chitty on Contracts, the leading work on English contract law. Having taken silk in 1972 (Northern Ireland in 1988), he established chambers in Brussels in 1977, spending seven years there.

His work remained varied and in the mid-1980s he successfully argued before the Court of Appeal that the Takeover Panel should be amenable to judicial review, even though it was a private body exercising public functions. He also acted as an arbitrator in major international disputes, including on landing charges at Heathrow in the late 1980s. In 1995 he led an inquiry into the departure of Neil Merritt, the vice-chancellor of Portsmouth University, over allegations of travel expense irregularities, and the following year was appointed chairman of Oftel, now Ofcom, the body that promotes competition in the telecommunications industry.

In 2006 Lever, an expert in ceramics and a collector of English furniture, entered a civil partnership with Brian Collie, an art collector, though they were later estranged. While hiking in the Alps with law students in the 1980s he had suffered an ankle injury that troubled him for the rest of his life. Throughout his life he adored cats, latterly doting on Griselda.

The intricacies of European law remained foremost in his mind. Writing in 2004, he discussed his concerns about the draft treaty to establish a full constitution for Europe, arguing that “there are great economic and personal advantages if Europeans can move as freely around Europe as Americans move around the United States”. At the same time, he was “profoundly unimpressed by ideological objectives” and “deeply suspicious of the highfalutin demands and claims made by some politicians and some bureaucrats”.

One of Lever’s many appointments was as chairman of the Performing Right Society’s appeals panel. He had previously represented George Michael in his restraint of trade case against the Sony record label, but was amused when the Evening Standard suggested that he earned £600,000 for that 75-day action. “I suppose that I ought to be flattered,” he wrote. “But the actual total of my fees is about 10 per cent of your estimate; and of that total, about a quarter will go straight out again in professional expenses.”

Sir Jeremy Lever KC, KCMG, competition lawyer, was born on June 23, 1933. He died from complications of dementia on August 24, 2025, aged 92