Biography: Competition

Simon is a London-based antitrust partner at Allen & Overy.

He was previously in charge of UK merger control at the Office of Fair Trading (OFT). He also represented the UK in complex EU merger cases and successfully defended the OFT in all three litigated merger cases during his tenure.

His recent cases include gaining EU Phase I clearance for Novartis on its US$40 billion acquisition of Alcon (one of the largest Phase I settlements ever); successful appeal for a competitor in Ticketmaster/Live Nation, in which the Competition Commission asked the court to quash its own Phase II decision; and obtaining unconditional EU Phase II clearance for Seagate's acquisition of Samsung's hard drive business (in a critical 'race-to-file' case, in which the parallel deal was subject to divestitures).

At the OFT he was singled out as 'highly rated' (GCR) while current clients praise his 'responsiveness and sound guidance' and note he has 'a great style and is very easy to work with' (Chambers).

Simon has previously practised US antitrust law in Washington DC and EU competition law in Brussels. He is the editor of UK Merger Control (Hart, 2011) and is a current ICN non-government adviser (NGA) to the OFT and former NGA to the US Federal Trade Commission.

Simon is qualified to practise law in England and Wales, New York and New South Wales.

He speaks German and studied at the Universities of Heidelberg (LLM) and Adelaide (BA 1st Class, LLB 1st Class).