Simon Taylor > Keating Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile
Keating Chambers Offices
15 ESSEX STREET
LONDON
WC2R 3AA
England
Simon Taylor
Position
Simon Taylor is a competition and procurement specialist, recommended in Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners as a leading junior in public procurement. He returned to the Bar in 2012 after 20 years of practising as an EU and competition lawyer, including 7 years as a partner in a leading firm of solicitors and 5 years in Brussels.
He has a busy contentious practise, acting both for bidders and buyers in public procurement disputes and also provides strategic advice on the conduct of tenders.
He advises companies, utilities and public bodies on competition, state aid and regulatory issues arising from disputes, transactions such as mergers or joint ventures and commercial agreements or conduct. He has specific expertise in regulated sectors such as healthcare, communications, rail and water.
Career
Called 1987; pupillage 2 Temple Gardens 1987-88; associate Squire Sanders & Dempsey (Brussels) 1990-92; Norton Rose (Brussels) 1992-96; regulatory counsel Cable & Wireless Communications 1996-2000; solicitor 1999; associate Allen & Overy 2000-04; antitrust partner Wragge & Co 2004-11; Keating Chambers 2012.
Languages
French (fluent)
Spanish (conversational)
Memberships
Procurement Lawyers Association
Royal Society of Arts
Society of Labour Lawyers
Association of London Welsh Lawyers
Education
Magdalen College, University of Oxford (1986 BA Hons jurisprudence); Université Libre de Bruxelles (1990 Licence Spéciale en droit communautaire in French grande distinction).
Leisure
Simon enjoys the theatre, travel, hillwalking, skiing, rugby, food and wine.
Lawyer Rankings
London Bar > Public procurement
(Leading Juniors)Ranked: Tier 2Simon Taylor – Keating Chambers ‘Simon is a real specialist in public procurement and one of the leading juniors in the field. He is frequently a first port-of-call for procurement challenges and is highly responsive and pragmatic in circumstances where initial advice is needed very urgently and on limited information.’
Having established ‘a great reputation for its bench strength in public procurement’, members of Keating Chambers consistently appear for government bodies in litigation and on an advisory basis. Sarah Hannaford KC, Fionnuala McCredie KC and Simon Taylor all appeared in Siemens Mobility v HS2 Ltd, with the High Court dismissing all of Siemens claims in the long-running procurement challenge to HS2’s award of a contract for the provision of rolling stock to a joint venture comprising Bombardier and Hitachi. McCredie KC, Taylor and Rachael O’Hagan all acted for the claimant in Excelerate Technology v West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS University Foundation Trust, a dispute concerning the procurement of satellite and wireless equipment for emergency services.