The President of the Competition Appeal Tribunal is pleased to announce that the Minister for Enterprise, Markets and Small Business, Mr Kevin Hollinrake MP, has appointed thirteen new members to the Tribunal’s panel of Ordinary Members.
The new members are:
Pınar Akman
Professor Pınar Akman is a Professor of Law at the University of Leeds, where she is a Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence on Digital Governance. She is a prize-winning academic and an internationally renowned expert in competition law with over fifteen years of experience. She has presented her research all around the globe and provided expertise to numerous organisations including the IMF, OECD, European Parliament, House of Lords and World Economic Forum.
John Alty
John Alty has held a number of senior civil service roles dealing with competition, intellectual property, business sectors and trade, culminating in setting up the UK's trade policy capability after the EU referendum as Director General for Trade Policy. He left the civil service in 2021 and is now a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics, and a trustee Director of the Institute of Export and International Trade.
Charles Bankes
Charles Bankes was a partner at Simmons & Simmons LLP from 1998 to 2022. He advised on all aspects of contentious and non-contentious competition law and utility regulation. In 2000 to 2001 he was seconded to Ofgem as General Counsel. He is the joint author of a textbook on UK merger control.
Carole Begent
Carole Begent qualified as a solicitor in 1989. Following private practice, where she specialised in commercial and company law, she was a public lawyer specialising in competition and regulatory law, holding policy and legal advisory positions at OFWAT, ORR, Department of Transport, the Competition Commission, the Competition and Markets Authority and the Payments System Regulator.
Eyad Maher Dabbah
Professor Eyad Maher Dabbah holds the Chair in Competition Law and Policy at Queen Mary University of London, where he is also the Director of the Institute for Competition and Consumers (ICC). Eyad has published widely and has advised on abusive dominance, cartels, vertical restraints and mergers in his capacity as special counsel and consultant to businesses, governments and international bodies. Eyad also has expertise in trade disputes and anti-dumping and has handled a number of high-profile matters in these areas.
John Davies
John Davies is an economist with 30 years' experience in the economics of competition and regulation. He has worked as a consultant in the private sector, most recently at Compass Lexecon, and in the public sector he has been Chief Economist at the UK Competition Commission, Chief Executive of the Competition Commission of Mauritius and Head of Competition Policy at the OECD.
Ian Forrester KC
Ian Forrester KC has experience as a practitioner of competition law controversies in Europe, Asia and North America, and has argued important cases on behalf of the public authority and large and small companies during a long career as an advocate. His writings and teaching on due process, sport, cartels, compulsory licensing and procedural reform have made useful contributions to the development of the law and practice. He was nominated by the UK to be a judge in the General Court of the European Union in 2015, and served till his mandate was ended by Brexit. He has returned to the Bar as a practitioner and arbitrator.
Robert Herga
Robert Herga was General Counsel at Gatwick Airport Limited from March 2010 to April 2022 and prior to that had been General Counsel at airport owner and operator BAA plc where he worked for 20 years. Robert was a Non-Executive Director at The Pension Regulator from 2017 until April 2022.
Pablo Ibáñez Colomo
Professor Pablo Ibáñez Colomo is Professor of Law at the London School of Economics, where he holds a Jean Monnet Chair in Competition and Regulation. He is also a Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (Bruges) and a Joint General Editor of the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice.
Dr Maria Maher
Maria Maher is an economist with over thirty years’ experience in competition and regulatory matters. She holds a PhD in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. Between 2006 and 2023, Maria worked in private practice and held senior positions with several economic consultancies. Prior to her career in economic consultancy, she was a Senior Economist with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. She started her career as an academic and has held positions at the University of Cambridge, where she was also a Fellow of Christ’s College, and at Birkbeck College.
Rachael Mulheron
Professor Rachael Mulheron KC (Hon) is Professor of Tort Law and Civil Justice at Queen Mary University of London, where she has taught since 2004. Her areas of teaching, research and publication focus upon Tort Law; Medical Negligence Law; Class Actions jurisprudence; and Civil Procedure more generally. Rachael has advised and/or assisted government entities, law reform commissions, charities, rules-making bodies, NGOs, and others across a range of Civil Procedure and Tort Law issues since 2005.
Henrique Schneider
Henrique Schneider is an economist who has served 12 years in the Swiss Competition Commission. He is also a professor of economics in Germany teaching and researching about the digital economy, the economics of telecommunications, as well as innovation.
Alasdair Smith
Alasdair Smith is an economist specialising in international trade. He has been a professor (now Emeritus) at the University of Sussex since 1981. He was a Deputy Chair of the Competition Commission then an Inquiry Chair at the Competition and Markets Authority, from 2012 to 2017. He has also been a member of the Scottish Fiscal Commission and of the Determinations Panel of the Pensions Regulator, and a senior adviser at the Payment Systems Regulator.
Notes:
- Ordinary Members are selected for their expertise in law, business, accountancy, economics and other related fields.
- Cases are heard before a Tribunal consisting of three members: either the President or a member of the panel of Chairmen and two Ordinary Members.
- The new members are appointed for eight years and paid according to the amount of time that they spend working for the Tribunal based on a daily rate of £400. The appointments carry no right of pension, gratuity or allowance on their termination. The announced appointments will commence on 5 June 2023.
- All appointments are made on merit and political activity plays no part in the selection process. However, in accordance with the original Nolan recommendations, there is a requirement for appointees’ political activity to be made public. None of the new members are politically active.
- Although these appointments do not come within the remit of the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments (OCPA), they have been made following OCPA best practice.