Noel Watson-Doig has a broad range of experience in European and UK competition, state aid and public procurement law. He has sector experience in pharmaceuticals, healthcare media and advertising. Noel previously worked as a competition lawyer for the British Broadcasting Corporation and BBC Worldwide, where he advised on a range of high-profile competition, regulatory and state aid issues.

Davina Garrod co-leads Akin’s global antitrust & international competition group. With more than 24 years’ experience, in addition to conducting multijurisdictional merger control analyses, navigating and obtaining antitrust and regulatory approvals for complex transactions within and outside of the European Union, and negotiating remedies packages, Davina represents multinationals, technology companies, digital platforms, sovereign wealth funds, PE and other institutions in the context of their strategic and financial investments (transactional and contentious). Davina also represents clients in foreign investment and national security investigations in the UK, Europe, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, as well as in EC State aid, foreign and UK subsidies cases, and behavioural antitrust investigations before the EC and UK CMA. Davina is recognized by leading legal directories for her “encyclopedic understanding of competition and merger control laws”, her “in-depth understanding of the regulatory landscape in markets”, for expressing “complex analysis in a commercial manner” and highlighted as an “excellent choice for clients”. London based, Davina has also worked in Washington, D.C. and Brussels.

Mat is a professional antitrust economist with over 30 years of experience. Who’s Who Legal 2022 ranks Mat as an economist Thought Leader and describes Mat as “a very bright economist who gets to the point”, “easy to work with” and receives acclaim for his “encyclopedic knowledge and excellent drafting skills.” He has acted for clients before the CMA/Competition Commission on more than 30 Phase 2 cases covering mergers and market investigations and a very large number of first-phase UK and EC mergers. Mat has written widely on the subject of UK/EC merger control, including in the International Comparative Guide to Merger Control (including matters such as the CMA’s use of pricing pressure tests in Asda/Sainsbury, mergers in dynamic markets, trends in merger control, the failing firm defence, and merger efficiencies). He is also a co-author of ‘UK Merger Control Law and Practice’ (3rd edition).

Nick Woodrow is Group Head of Competition Law for Vodafone. Nick is responsible for competition law matters across all the territories where Vodafone group operates. This includes merger control, antitrust investigations and litigation and managing the group’s compliance programme. Nick managed the EU merger approval processes for the recent acquisition of Liberty Global businesses in Germany and Eastern Europe and the INWIT and VodafoneZiggo joint ventures, as well as merger control processes in India, Australia and New Zealand.