Ali Nikpay is a partner in the firm's global antitrust and competition practice and head of the competition and antitrust practice group in London. A partner of both our London and Brussels offices, he has more than 20 years of competition, antitrust and litigation experience in both the private and public sectors.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Mr. Nikpay was at the UK competition authority where he served as the Senior Director for Cartels and Criminal Enforcement from 2009 to 2013. In this role he was responsible for leading all of the Cartel enforcement activities in the UK and liaising with senior officials in other major authorities such as the US DOJ, EU Commission, the Korea FTC and the Japanese FTC in worldwide investigations. From 2006 to 2009, he served as the Senior Director responsible for Policy, Legal Advice and International matters. From 2004 to 2006, he served as Senior Director for Competition Case Scrutiny and Policy. In these leadership roles, he developed and implemented major changes to the UK's competition enforcement regime, reshaping in particular its cartels and criminal practices and delivering decisions in some of the most significant merger cases in recent years, including Anglo American/Lafarge, LSE/LCH.Clearnet, BATS/Chi-X, and Rank/Gala.
Mr. Nikpay also led the OFT's ground-breaking work on the reform of the UK's private competition litigation system and of the legislation governing the prosecution of the criminal cartel offence. During his time in charge, the National Audit Office found that the OFT was "leading the intellectual debate on substantive issues in competition analysis."
