Ali Nikpay is a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and head of its competition and consumer practice groups in London.  He has more than 20 years of EU and UK merger control, antitrust,  consumer protection and litigation experience in both the private and public sectors.

The Lawyer identified Ali as one of their “Hot 100” in both 2019 and 2010, stating “few other practices can say they have dealt with more high-profile competition cases over the past three years.” The Financial Times named Mr. Nikpay among the Top 10 Innovators in Europe at the 2017 FT European Innovative Lawyer Awards. He is described in an editorial by the UK’s leading broadsheet, the Daily Telegraph, as “one of the world’s preeminent experts in European competition law”; by Chambers UK, Chambers Global and Chambers Europe 2021 as “the lawyer you want at your side when it really matters” and by Legal 500 2016 as “technically outstanding” and “very effective”.

Since joining Gibson Dunn in 2013, he has counseled clients such as UBS, Asda, Gala Coral, Schlumberger, Marriott Hotels, William Hill, Debenhams and a number of leading technology companies. Prior to that he served at both the European Commission’s DG for Competition (DG COMP) and the UK competition authority. He also worked at a Magic Circle firm for clients such as GE, NTT DoCoMo, KKR, and CVC.

At DG COMP Ali acted as legal/policy advisor to case-teams in over 50 antitrust and merger cases. He was also lead case-handler for a number of high-profile competition and merger cases. In addition he was actively involved in the initiatives which reformed the EU’s policy on vertical agreements and non-cartel horizontal agreements.

During his time at the UK competition Authority, Ali held a number of important positions including Senior Director of its Cartels and Criminal Enforcement division, Senior Director for Merger Decisions and Senior Director of Policy International (in which capacity he interacted with senior officials at agencies in the US, the EU, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Canada etc). He was also a member of the authority’s highest decision-making organ, its Executive Committee.

He has also served on the Confederation of British Industry’s Competition Panel and on several occasions appeared before the House of Lords Select Committee on the European Union.

He is co-editor of “Faull & Nikpay: The EU Law of Competition,” which was described by European Competition Law Review as “… the best single volume work dealing with EU competition law that is available. He serves on the editorial boards of the following journals: “European Competition Law”, “World Competition”, “Antitrust Enforcement Review” and “Competition Law International”. Ali is a Visiting Lecturer at University of Oxford and was a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). In 2012, he authored an article “UK cartel enforcement: past, present, future“, which was nominated by the Global Competition Review for an award.