Alston & Bird LLP

Lawyer & team qualitySector knowledge

James Ashe-Taylor

Clients contemplating mergers, acquisitions, investments, and joint ventures trust James to help them navigate EU and UK regulations and identify where antitrust boundaries lie. James focuses his practice on competition law at the European Union level and in the UK. He has broad experience encompassing competition litigation, merger control, state aid, and the antitrust aspects of joint ventures and distribution and agency agreements. In addition to his antitrust experience, James has extensive knowledge of EU payments legislation, is a frequent speaker at fintech conferences, and mentors startup companies in the fintech sector. Before joining Alston & Bird, James was a resident in Brussels for several years, served as partner-in-charge of the antitrust practices for both international and U.S. law firms, and spent two years at JP Morgan Inc.

Paul Greaves

Dual-qualified in England and Wales and Belgium, Paul Greaves leverages his substantial international experience to deliver ready-to-implement solutions to his clients’ data and technology-related challenges. Paul advises on all aspects of privacy, cyber, and data law across a diverse range of clients - from global technology firms to life sciences startups expanding into Europe. His extensive experience includes advising on EU and UK GDPR compliance projects, cross-border data transfers, and personal data breaches. Paul also regularly advises multinational companies on EU digital strategy laws including the EU AI Act, Cyber Resilience Act, Digital Services Act, and Data Act. Paul also has experience working as an in-house privacy lawyer in a highly regulated sector and studied law in Paris.

Jens-Olrik Murach

As a distinguished antitrust lawyer with more than two decades of dedicated practice in Brussels and Germany, Jens has earned a reputation for providing pragmatic and invaluable legal counsel to his clients worldwide. His practice covers the complete range of EU and German antitrust matters across a wide spectrum of industry sectors. Jens also has significant experience handling foreign direct investment screening and EU foreign subsidies matters. Jens has advised on many complex and high-stakes merger control matters, both before the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office. His broad experience includes significant transatlantic deals, and he also has strong experience in managing global merger control investigations in virtually every part of the world. Jens has represented multiple companies in cartel and monopolization investigations, including handling leniency applications, settlement negotiations, and appeals. He also has significant experience advising on vertical distribution matters and represents clients in commercial and administrative antitrust litigation.

Wim Nauwelaerts

Wim provides critical privacy, cybersecurity, and data protection support for multinational organizations to ensure their valuable data assets are used appropriately and safeguarded from risk. Wim is the partner-in-charge of Alston & Bird’s Brussels office, leading the firm’s European Privacy, Cyber & Data Strategy Team. A true veteran in his field, Wim has been advising multinational companies on privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity matters for almost 25 years. His practice spans a variety of industries, with a particular emphasis on life sciences, media, and new technologies (including AI). Wim has developed internationally recognized experience in assisting clients with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance projects, including implementing cross-border data transfer strategies negotiating GDPR-related contract terms. In his cyber practice, clients who have suffered a cyber breach usually bring Wim in at an early stage to help assess their legal obligations and develop a strategy on notifications to regulators and affected individuals. Wim has written and spoken widely on privacy and cyber-related topics, such as data transfers out of Europe, cross-border breach notifications, and GDPR enforcement.

Alice Portnoy

Alice draws upon her experience in the data & technology and media & entertainment sectors to help clients with their most complex data privacy issues. Alice focuses her practice on technology and data privacy matters with experience counseling national and international companies across the media and entertainment, pharma, scientific research, education, nonprofit, and food and retail sectors. Alice is a Certified Information Privacy Professional, Europe (CIPP/E).

Richard Willis

For 25 years Richard has been a legal resource for the payments industry worldwide. Richard has extensive payments industry knowledge, particularly in leading sophisticated cross-border transactions and new market entry for his banking, payments, and fintech clients, and advises on regulatory and compliance matters for clients of all types and sizes. He focuses on the general representation of both public and privately held entities within the payments industry. Richard concentrates his practice on mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances and has particular experience with cross-border transactions. As part of serving payments industry clients, he routinely advises on regulatory and compliance matters, as well as new market entry, across the globe. Richard has extensive experience with complex, international acquisition, and long-term joint venture transactions. He also has nearly 20 years’ experience in counseling and serving as lead counsel to payments industry participants, including global financial institutions, merchant acquirers, card issuers, card schemes/associations, ISOs and MSPs, and B2B payment companies. Richard has served as lead counsel in scores of acquisitions and joint ventures/strategic alliances throughout North America, Europe, South America, and Asia (including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Iceland, India, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom).