Dr. Saskia King

Dr. Saskia King is a Partner in the Competition & EU Law team in London, with over 20 years' experience at the cutting edge of UK and EU competition law and policy, having worked at regulators, competition authorities, in academia and in private practice. Her primary practice area is Competition Law.

She is a competition enforcement specialist, having joined Bird & Bird from the Payment Systems Regulator (PSR), where she was a senior lawyer leading the PSR's first competition cartel investigation in the payments space. She also worked for several years at the Competition and Markets Authority, where she advised on a broad range of complex and high-profile antitrust investigations and mergers (both at Phase 1 and 2). She also represented the UK's interests internationally at the OECD Competition Committee.

This experience has given her valuable insight into antitrust enforcement, policy and regulatory practices, meaning she is well placed to advise clients on every aspect of competition compliance as well as investigations from inception to closure, including complaints, cartel leniency applications, dawn raids, requests for information, evidence gathering, interviews, settlement, as well as merger filings, remedies, sector enquiries and market studies and investigations.

Her team brings in-depth and extensive experience on the application of EU and UK competition and merger control rules (both contentious and non-contentious) to sectors such as sport, retail, consumer, financial, fintech, payments, life sciences and technology, data and AI markets. They regularly represent clients before the Courts and arbitration panels and advise high-profile businesses on cross-border transactions, including on complex foreign direct investment matters.

She previously taught UK and EU competition law at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she completed her doctorate in EU competition law. She has written widely on competition law, particularly on the most egregious restrictions of competition, and her published work is often cited in academic texts and papers.

She advises clients on some of the most complex and commercially significant competition law matters, particularly affecting the sport, retail and consumer sectors. Advising on the intersection between competition law and sport is a particular passion, and she is also interested in the fast pace of developments in AI and digital markets.