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About NERA
Since 1961, NERA has provided unparalleled guidance on the most important market, legal, and regulatory questions of the day. Our work has shaped industries and policy around the world. Our field-leading experts and deep experience allows us to provide rigorous analysis, reliable expert testimony, and data-powered policy recommendations for the world’s leading law firms and corporations as well as regulators and governments. Our experience, integrity, and economic ingenuity mean you can depend on us in the face of your biggest economic and financial challenges.
19 March 2019—NERA Economic Consulting, a leading global provider of economic advice and analysis in business, legal, and regulatory matters, is pleased to announce that Dr. Timothy Watt has been promoted to Managing Director, and George Anstey, Richard Druce, Dr. Subbu Ramanarayanan, Grant Saggers, and Dr. Vladimir Starkov have been promoted to Director. In addition, Dr. Airat Chanyshev, Hans-Martin Ihle, Dr. Will Taylor, and Dr. Paul Wong have been made Associate Directors.
Managing Director
Dr. Watts, based in New York City, is a member of NERA’s Antitrust and Competition Practice. For over a decade, Dr. Watts has helped clients navigate the review of mergers and acquisitions by competition authorities around the world, including the US Federal Trade Commission, the US Department of Justice, the Canadian Competition Bureau, the European Commission, and China’s MOFCOM. Dr. Watts is an expert in applying cutting-edge empirical and theoretical techniques to competitive questions, with particularly deep experience in the consumer products, retail, oil and gas, and chemical industries. Dr. Watts’ recent research has focused on competitive issues related to pricing algorithms, multi-sided markets, private label products, vertical foreclosure, and price discrimination.
Directors
Mr. Anstey is a Director in NERA’s Global Energy, Environment, Communications & Infrastructure Practice, based in London. He specializes in the economics of utility markets and regulation. His work spans public policy, litigation, valuation, due diligence, and competition policy. His recent work has covered competition in gas and electricity supply markets, arbitration and contract reviews, damages estimation, the design of market rules for gas and electricity, and the design of energy efficiency policies. In addition to his work in energy, Mr. Anstey works across other regulated industries, including the water industry, communications, and the gambling sector. His expertise in competition policy covers restrictive agreements, abuse of a dominant position, and state aid.
Mr. Druce is a Director in NERA’s Global Energy, Environment, Communications & Infrastructure Practice. He specializes in regulatory issues in the utilities and infrastructure industries, as well as valuation and due diligence, competition policy, litigation, and public policy. Much of his work involves supporting regulated utilities and other infrastructure companies in the course of price control reviews, during which he works on incentive design, cost-benefit analysis, valuation and willingness-to-pay studies, cost assessment and benchmarking, and regulatory finance issues. He has worked extensively on electricity transmission and distribution charging issues, gas infrastructure access pricing, electricity market modeling exercises, and market reform engagements related to the economic challenges associated with climate change and “smart grid” deployment.
Dr. Ramanarayanan, based in New York City, is a member of NERA’s Antitrust and Competition Practice and the Health Care Practice. Dr. Ramanarayanan’s areas of expertise and interest include industrial organization, health economics, applied microeconomics, and econometrics. He specializes in advising clients on antitrust reviews of proposed mergers and acquisitions where he has analyzed issues relating to market definition and market power, alleged monopolization, exclusive contracting, price fixing, alleged foreclosure, and for-profit ownership across a variety of settings in health care, including hospital services, health insurance, physician services, group purchasing organizations, dialysis services, pharmaceuticals, and benefits management. Dr. Ramanarayanan is an award-winning MBA professor and teaches courses on business strategy and modules on health care strategy to MBA students and executives at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Mr. Saggers is a Director in NERA’s Antitrust and Competition practice, based in London. He specializes in competition economics and regulatory strategy in the context of high-value, complex disputes. He has led companies successfully through matters involving market investigations, merger clearance, state aid, and abuse of dominance. Mr. Saggers regularly presents expert economic evidence in regulatory hearings. His recent work includes Competition and Market Authority investigations into private health care, retail banking, and the cement industry; economic advice to clients in front of the Financial Conduct Authority; state aid cases in the restructuring of a postal services operator, a number of European banks, and a coal mining business; economic advice to a large petrochemical company facing abuse of dominance and cartel complaints; and providing economics and strategic advice to public sector bodies negotiating multi-million pound pricing and funding settlements.
Dr. Starkov is a Chicago-based member of NERA’s Valuation, Life Sciences, and Transfer Pricing Practices. He specializes in the areas of intercompany pricing and asset valuation, regularly conducting business valuation, including for closely held businesses, and valuation of stock option compensation. Dr. Starkov has participated in engagements involving various tax controversy situations; negotiation and implementation support for advance pricing agreements with tax authorities; design of intercompany pricing methodologies; valuation of intangible property transferred in intercompany transactions, including cost-sharing agreements; and preparation of transfer pricing documentation. He has provided consulting services for clients in a variety of industries, including automotive, banking, biotechnology, high technology, consumer electronics, electric utilities, petrochemicals, software development, and industrial and consumer products.
Associate Directors
Dr. Chanyshev, based in New York City, is an expert in the areas of general securities litigation, securities and business valuation, investment management, derivatives, and cryptocurrencies. His recent work has focused on economic analysis and research related to market manipulation, regulatory investigations, structured finance, tax disputes, and bankruptcy. He received his PhD and MS/BS in mathematics from Moscow University and his MBA in finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Fellow of the UK’s Association of Chartered Certified Accountants and holds a diploma in business and economics from the American University in Moscow.
Mr. Ihle advises both government bodies and companies on regulatory and policy issues in relation to spectrum management. He has advised clients on the development and implementation of methodologies to determine the full market value of comparable spectrum sold in auctions. For bidders, he has convened workshops on bidding strategy and run mock auctions to help bid teams understand the likely dynamics of real auctions. Mr. Ihle has developed software to support the chosen bid strategy and to analyze the behavior of bidders. He also provides onsite client support during auctions. In the energy arena, Mr. Ihle has worked on the design of a procurement auction for balancing services. He has also conducted research on a novel mechanism to remunerate capacity in electricity markets.
Dr. Taylor is an Auckland-based member of NERA’s Antitrust and Competition; Energy; and Communications, Media, and Internet Practices. He has a particular focus on issues involving new and disruptive technologies, providing expert analysis and advice to clients across New Zealand and Australia. In the field of competition economics, Dr. Taylor advises clients on mergers and acquisitions, contracting issues, and allegations of anticompetitive practices. He has advised energy clients on regulatory economics for network businesses, electricity transmission pricing reform, transmission governance reform (in the gas sector), electricity market reform proposals, and associated investigations by policymakers, as well as contractual disputes over prices for pipeline infrastructure. Dr. Taylor also has extensive experience in communications and media markets, having been involved in regulatory proceedings for mobile termination, backhaul, and local loop unbundling.
Dr. Wong, based in Los Angeles, is a member of NERA’s Health Care, Life Sciences, and Antitrust and Competition Practices. He has provided expert advice on a variety of health care mergers, including the Advocate-NorthShore hospital merger challenged by the Federal Trade Commission, the Aetna-Humana and Centene-Health Net health insurance mergers, as well as mergers involving major hospital systems in more than 15 states. Dr. Wong has consulted on antitrust litigation in the health care industry, including cases involving hospitals, multispecialty physician groups, health insurance, medical devices, and medical supply distribution. He has also researched the impact of patient-centered care on patients’ medical costs and how competition impacts patenting and innovation in agricultural biotechnology.