The Competition Law & Artificial Intelligence Summit - 2nd Annual

Karen Croxson joined the CMA in September 2023 and was appointed as its first Chief Data, Technology and Insight Officer on 2 April 2024.

Karen is a member of the Senior Executive Team and oversees all the CMA’s work related to data, technology and analytics including Artificial Intelligence. This includes analysis of emerging technologies, how these shape markets, and the implications for consumers and competition, as well as the CMA’s digital transformation, harnessing data, technology and analytics to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the CMA’s work.

Tamara Todorovic is a Director of Competition Enforcement at the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.

At the CMA, she primarily works on civil cartel investigations and has joint responsibility for the CMA’s leniency policy. Prior to joining the CMA, Tamara worked as a competition lawyer in private practice and spent time on secondment at the UK Government, advising on competition law and policy.

Jenine heads Weil’s European antitrust practice.  She has advised on some of the most high-profile and complex M&A transactions of the past decade, securing Phase 2 clearances from both the European Commission and CMA.  With a particular focus on the technology, pharmaceutical and energy sectors, she has represented corporations on a wide range of behavioural antitrust matters, as well as on competition appeals and litigation.  Jenine is recognised as a leading competition lawyer in Chambers Global, Europe and UK, is included in the “Hall of Fame” in Legal 500 with a “stellar market reputation” and was listed as one of the leading “Women in Antitrust 2021” by Global Competition Review.

Ashwin focuses on contentious antitrust matters – abuse of dominance and restrictive agreements – as well as regulation in the technology sector. He has represented clients such as Nokia, GE, Samsung, Epic Games, and Oracle.

Ashwin has secured wins for clients accused of abuse of dominance on six occasions – in one instance after issuance of a Statement of Objections – and helped to negotiate commitments in the remaining two cases. He is equally active on the complainant side, currently advising multiple clients in separate abuse of dominance proceedings. Ashwin also advises (prospective) gatekeepers as well as third parties on implications of the Digital Markets Act.

Ashwin’s practice covers key issues in technology markets, including: (i) standard essential patents, (ii) standard-setting agreements, (iii) refusal to supply and refusal to license, (iv) interoperability, (v) aftermarkets, (vi) tying, (vii) data, and (viii) vertical restraints in licensing and distribution agreements.

Ashwin previously worked as a software engineer in California and the Netherlands, and relies on his tech background to advise his clients and understand their business.

With more than 27 years’ experience, in addition to conducting multijurisdictional merger control analyses, navigating and obtaining antitrust and regulatory approvals for complex cross-border transactions, and negotiating remedies packages, Akin International Competition Practice Group Leader Davina Garrod represents leading sovereign wealth funds, private equity and other financial institutions in their strategic and financial investments (transactional and contentious). As regards FDI, Davina represented the acquirer in the first retroactive call in and judicial review under the NSIA, and multiple investors in more than 40 NSIA approvals. Davina also has in-depth experience in mitigation in the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Davina’s practice extends to behavioural, EU FSR and State aid investigations, together with counselling and litigation, for clients across sectors, including technology/AI, energy, retail, life sciences, construction and aviation. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, Davina has been seconded to Brussels, Washington DC, a global financial institution and the communications regulator. 

Marjolein De Backer is a competition law specialist at Eversheds Sutherland in Brussels. She has over 15 years of experience advising multinationals on global transactions and conduct investigations. She also regularly advises on foreign direct investment as well as competition law related questions in the fields of ESG, patent licensing, routes to market, and regulations such as the DMA. Marjolein has worked for multinationals across different sectors including, energy and commodities, financial services, manufacturing, media, pharmaceuticals and life sciences, technology, the internet of things, and transport and logistics. Marjolein has represented clients before the EU, UK and Belgian competition authorities and courts. She is qualified in Belgium and New York.

Marjolein frequently publishes and speaks at conferences on key developments and reforms such as in the technology space, and has been recognized and recommended over several years as a leading lawyer for competition law in legal directories such as Chambers Europe since 2019.

Konstantina is a Partner at Geradin Partners. Before joining the firm, Konstantina was Senior Legal Counsel at the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

While at the EBU, Konstantina acquired significant experience in a wide range of matters that concern audiovisual markets and the platform economy. She led two expert groups that focus on online platform regulation, the reform of competition rules to make them fit for digital markets, and the funding and remit of public service media.

Konstantina has worked extensively on antitrust issues arising from the acquisition of premium content, unilateral platform practices, State aid control in the broadcasting sector, and regulatory matters concerning the distribution of media content. She has guided the EBU’s work on the platform-to-business Regulation and the Digital Markets Act proposal, regularly engaging with EU policymakers in those areas.

Konstantina is also a lecturer at the University of Sheffield and an extramural fellow at the Tilburg Law and Economics Centre. In 2020, she was appointed to a scientific council to advise the Greek government on data policy issues.

Konstantina holds a PhD from the European University Institute (EUI). Her dissertation, which explores the role of media pluralism in the enforcement of EU competition law, received the 2016 Concurrences PhD thesis award (an annual Europe-wide competition aimed at selecting the most innovative thesis in the field of law and economics). She publishes regularly in her areas of expertise and she has received prizes and fellowships from numerous institutions, including the Academic Society for Competition Law, the Fulbright Commission, the Competition Law Scholars Forum, and the Institute for European Studies. She has been a guest lecturer at various leading institutions, such as the EUI, Queen Mary University, the University of Lausanne, and Bocconi University.

Konstantina is a native Greek and speaks English, Italian, Spanish and French. She is qualified in Greece.

James Hill is a Principal based in the London office of RBB Economics, where he has worked since April 2013. Since joining RBB, James has advised on a wide variety of competition cases before the European Commission, domestic competition authorities and courts including in the UK, China, France, Switzerland, Turkey and South Africa.

Becket advises clients on all aspects of EU and UK competition law, with an emphasis on merger control, defending companies against investigations and distribution issues. He regularly engages with the CMA on merger control matters and recently advised a major AI model developer on parallel CMA merger reviews of its partnerships with two large technology companies. He is a leading expert on distribution issues raised by e-commerce, including in the context of selective distribution, and also defends companies under investigation by the CMA for consumer law breaches.

Although he advises clients in a broad range of sectors, Becket has particular interest in the media, technology and life sciences sectors. This interest extends to the growing importance of public interest and foreign investment reviews for these sectors.

Becket has experience enforcing UK and EU competition law at a senior level in the UK’s Office of Fair Trading (now Competition and Markets Authority) and retains good links with enforcement agencies and regulators in the UK and the EU.

Jordan is a competition, consumer and regulatory specialist based in our Brussels office. He represents clients before global, European and UK competition authorities, courts and sectoral regulators.

Jordon’s experience includes advising in technology and media, life science and pharmaceuticals, financial sector, consumer sectors and industrial sectors.

Jordan also advises various companies in relation to European Commission cartel investigations.

Jordan is listed as a leading individual for Competition Law in Chambers Belgium, 2021. Jordan is co-author of the American Bar Association’s Tech Treatise.

Verity is a counsel in Linklaters’ London Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group and co-head of the UK technology sector team.

Verity has over a decade of experience across advisory, investigatory and transactional aspects of competition law in the EU and the UK, including on vertical and abuse of dominance issues. She is particularly familiar with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, having spent time on secondment to the CMA’s mergers group, during which she sat on the CMA’s Mergers Intelligence Committee. 

Ian Giles is an antitrust, competition and regulatory lawyer working from our London and Brussels offices.  He has been involved in a number of significant cases in recent years across the spectrum of competition law, including: securing approvals for major transactions; representing clients in high-profile market and competition investigations; and advising on disputes in respect of competition, regulatory and trade law.

Ian is ranked as a Leading Individual in Chambers, The Legal 500, and Who's Who Legal, with Chambers describing him as "a great lawyer, someone who's very responsive, practical and thoughtful. He's very focused on trying to find solutions."  He is also recognized for his "excellent legal skills" and "creative thinking", as well as being "extremely responsive", and having an "astute and methodical approach". 

Ian worked in a senior role as a competition enforcer at the UK Office of Fair Trading in 2008-9, and the insights he gained from this time are particularly valuable in his work.  He is a frequent speaker and media commentator on competition issues, and author of various competition law academic works.  Ian is also a leading member of the UK ICC Competition Group and the City of London Law Society Competition Group. 

Giulia focuses on competition disputes, particularly with a tech angle, as well as environmental claims. 

Giulia has also cultivated great experience on high-profile commercial and financial litigation. She joined Hausfeld from Withers where she qualified as an associate.  

She has a great knowledge of AI related topics such as data protection and ethical and privacy concerns and has been recognised in the prestigious 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics™ 2025 list and in the Top 50 Fintech, TMT & AI lawyers in 2024. She is currently undertaking an innovative, interdisciplinary Masters in AI Ethics & Society at the University of Cambridge. She was featured by Legal 500 as a key lawyer for banking litigation in 2021 as well as for the art and cultural property practice more recently.

Emily is a Principal in the London office. She joined Keystone from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), where she worked as a Director leading market and merger investigations. Emily has over 15 years of experience as a competition practitioner undertaking analysis, research, providing advice and overseeing the delivery of large complex investigations.

Most recently, she led the CMA's widescale market study into mobile ecosystems (exploring competition and potential remedies in mobile operating systems, browsers, app distribution and app stores) and the preparation of the market investigation into mobile browsers and cloud gaming. She also worked closely with the CMA's Digital Markets Unit in advising on its wider portfolio of cases and digital regulation. Her sector experience beyond digital is wide ranging, covering banking (most recently open banking), aggregates, healthcare and electric vehicle charging. She has also led high-profile merger investigations (including the JD Sports/Footasylum merger) and a super-complaint on loyalty penalties. Throughout her career she has closely engaged with government, regulators and consumer organisations.

Oliver Latham has worked on digital mergers including Amazon/Deliveroo, Amazon/iRobot, Microsoft/LinkedIn, Microsoft/GitHub, Microsoft/ZeniMax, Microsoft/Xandr, Microsoft/Nuance, PayPal/iZettle, PayPal/Honey, Taboola/Outbrain, Visa/Plaid, Visa/Tink, Uber/Yandex, Uber/Grab, Uber/Careem, Uber/Postmates and Uber/Cornershop). His antitrust and regulatory work includes providing economic analysis to Amazon, Microsoft, ByteDance and Visa and he has also advised complainants in relation to the Google Android, Shopping and Ad Tech cases. He also works on antitrust litigation including on claims brought against Google and Meta. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge and has published on economic issues in outlets including the Economic Journal, Competition Policy International, European Competition Journal and Sunday Times.

Gregor Langus leads Cornerstone Research’s Brussels competition team. Dr. Langus is a leading European competition economist who supports clients and provides expert testimony in antitrust investigations, merger reviews, competition damages matters, and arbitration proceedings. He has extensive experience in innovation, digital markets, and intellectual property matters, with a focus on information technology markets, online platforms, standard essential patents (SEPs), and copyright issues.

Dr. Langus has worked on matters in multiple jurisdictions, including before the European Commission (EC), the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and competition authorities and courts of several European Union member states.

Ashley Brickles has more than 15 years of experience, specialising in the use of technology to develop innovative and cost-effective solutions for her clients. Ms. Brickles is known for her skill in leading teams of technical experts to drive successful client outcomes, focusing on large, complex, multi-jurisdictional regulatory investigations and high-profile litigations. She has led some of the most demanding European conduct, collective action and merger-clearance cases over the past decade.

Ms. Brickles bring extensive expertise in solving complex data issues that have become hallmarks in investigations, class action regimes and compliance matters relating to evolving digital and data regulation globally. She is frequently called upon to design and implement defensible strategies to proportionately reduce data volumes and is an expert in emerging data sources such as cloud platforms and collaboration tools. She effectively uses various artificial intelligence and analytic-based technologies to meet tight deadlines and reduce overall legal spend in high-stakes matters.

Ms. Brickles provides advisory support surrounding dawn raid readiness plans, robust litigation hold and data preservation plans, mitigation of cross-border transfers and other data privacy issues that arise in multi-jurisdictional cases. She also supports clients in establishing effective approaches to analysing non-traditional data sources.

Specialising in high profile, complex cases with large data volumes, Ms. Brickles has expertise with contentious cases, particularly cross-border competition merger control. She has also led investigative and document review activities for numerous U.K. and EU-based class actions.

Prior to joining FTI Technology, Ms. Brickles was an associate at a U.S. law firm, where practiced exclusively on strategic e-discovery consulting and project management in complex civil matters, including antitrust, patent disputes, banking securities and fraud investigations.

Minesh is a Partner at Simmons & Simmons specialising in tech disputes. He is also the firm’s Global AI Lead and is an industry-recognised leader in AI law.

Minesh is Chair of the Society for Computers and Law (SCL) AI Group and Chair of the City of London Law Society (CLLS) AI Committee, he is a contributing author to Artificial Intelligence Law and Regulation (Elgar, 2022), Artificial Intelligence in Finance (Elgar, 2023) and The Law of Artificial Intelligence (Sweet & Maxwell, forthcoming), and a regular speaker, lecturer and media commentator on AI law.

As well as regularly advising clients (including governments) on legal, regulatory and ethical issues relating to AI, Minesh has been involved in ground-breaking work on AI governance, which has been shortlisted for multiple awards.

Minesh has been listed as a “Global Market Leader” in AI by Chambers (2024).

Rikki Haria is a partner in the Antitrust, Competition and Trade group at Freshfields.

He regularly advises on high-profile, complex and cross-border M&A involving merger control, foreign investment and other regulatory processes. Notable examples include HPE/Juniper, Adobe/Figma, MasMovil/Orange, Iberdrola/Electricity North West, Tesco/Booker and Apollo/Verizon.

As a member of Freshfields’ global tech practice and having spent time working in Silicon Valley, Rikki advises a broad range of tech and digital platform businesses, including on the interplay between antitrust, data privacy and consumer protection laws. He also has a particular focus on the telecoms, financial services, retail and consumer products sectors, having advised on various merger reviews, market investigations and competition enforcement action in these sectors.

Rikki also helps clients to navigate complex regulatory environments, including digital regulation (such as the EU Digital Markets Act and UK digital markets competition regime) and emerging technologies (such as artificial intelligence).