Alexander Waksman, a leading EU and UK competition lawyer, has been appointed as Partner by challenger law firm gunnercooke, based in the firm’s London office.
Joining from Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, Alexander has acted on groundbreaking cases, including advising Google on the European Commission’s Android investigation and subsequent appeal, successfully defending Merck in the UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) investigation into its blockbuster Remicade medication, and representing parties in the CMA’s market studies into digital advertising and mobile ecosystems.
Alexander has represented wide-ranging clients, including financial services companies, international airlines, manufacturers, and water companies who have turned to him for advice on behavioural, merger control, advisory, and policy matters. He has particular expertise in the digital sector, where he advises clients on forthcoming EU and UK regulations governing digital platforms.
Alexander is widely recognised as a thought leader. He co-authored the first comprehensive practitioner textbook on UK Competition Law ( ‘UK Competition Regime: A Practitioner’s Guide’ published in 2021 by Sweet & Maxwell), and serves as a board member and editorial writer for the European Competition Law Review. He was named as a ‘future leader’ of competition law in Who’s Who Legal 2021 and was shortlisted as a ‘rising star’ of private practice at the 2019 British Legal Awards.
Alexander commented on the move: “I’m delighted to be joining gunnercooke’s energetic and fast-growing team of experts. The firm’s innovative model is well-suited to my practice and to clients who want to work directly with their trusted advisors while benefiting from an efficient and predictable level of fees. I strongly believe that the fee share model is an idea whose time has come.”
The firm’s Co-Founder, Sarah Goulbourne, added: “We are thrilled to welcome Alex to our growing Competition and Antitrust team, an area which is rapidly becoming more and more important to businesses. He brings with him some fantastic experience with high-profile clients and we are confident that our innovative model will allow him to expand his practice even further. We expect to see more great things from him over the coming years.”
gunnercooke is a full-service commercial professional services firm, founded to change the way legal services are delivered to clients and how lawyers balance their lives. The firm’s innovative model sees 265 partners with a minimum 10,000 hours practicing experience becoming trusted advisers to their clients, providing certainty of price and delivering the best quality advice. The firm has seven offices across the UK and Germany.
