Speakers

Anne Davies is Professor of Law and Public Policy and a Fellow of Brasenose College. She studied at Oxford, completing the BA (winning the Gibbs and Martin Wronker Prizes) and the D.Phil. She was a Prize Fellow at All Souls College from 1995 to 2001, and the Garrick Fellow and Tutor in Law at Brasenose College from 2001 to 2015. From 2015-2020 she was Dean of the Oxford Law Faculty.

Professor Davies is the author of five books and numerous articles in the fields of public law and labour law. In public law, she has a particular interest in government contracts. Her D.Phil. thesis examined the phenomenon of contractualisation in the UK National Health Service from a public law perspective. She developed this research into a book entitled Accountability: A Public Law Analysis of Government by Contract which was published by Oxford University Press in 2001. Her book The Public Law of Government Contracts, a wider examination of public procurement and public/private partnership contracts from a public law perspective, was published by OUP in 2008. She continues to write about government contracts and public service delivery more generally, and chairs the Oxford POGO Club for the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford.

Michael Bowsher has been a member of Monckton Chambers since 2001. Michael is best known for his unique practice in public procurement. Michael Bowsher QC has appeared in many of the major UK procurement cases over the last decade.

While maintaining his focus on procurement matters, Michael has also built a diverse practice based around EU and commercial law. He is involved in competition law (particularly damages claims by victims of anti-competitive conduct), regulatory challenges, commercial public law and substantial commercial disputes, particularly in construction, technology and public service sectors such as healthcare, transport, waste and utility provision.
Michael is involved increasingly in the growing area of Space Law.

As Visiting Professor at King's College, London he teaches public procurement law on the LLM course and is director of the distance learning course in public procurement law which leads to an MA from King’s.

Julian has specialised, for over 30 years: in Social Enterprise; Charity; Responsible Business; Public Service Reform and Innovation; Co-operatives and Stakeholder Participation; blending business and public benefit legal disciplines. He has been especially involved in the development and maturing of Social Enterprise, Social Finance, Social Value, and Social Impact Investment and Measurement and their application to Public Policy.

He promotes public value, purpose and partnership in Public Procurement and Public Sector Contracts and State Aid and Public Sector Grants, championing the Innovation Partnership. He promotes a distinctive approach to contracts as practical working agreements (as noted in the 2020 Kruger Report to Government on Civil Society).

He works particularly in relation to: Community Transport; Education (particularly Further Education); Health and Social Care; Rehabilitation and Justice; Renewable Energy; and Employment and Youth Services

Before joining Stone King, in 2018, Julian was co-head of the Bates Wells Charity and Social Enterprise Department and led the development of the education and other cross-departmental sector groups.

Kate is a partner in Freshfields' Global Projects Disputes Practice. Kate specialises in complex contentious and non-contentious public procurement, construction and infrastructure matters. She has advised public and private sector clients on a wide range of major domestic and international projects and disputes across a variety of sectors, including nuclear, transport, infrastructure, healthcare and defence. Kate is a regular contributor to articles on public procurement.

A former MEP and Chairman of the Parliament’s Internal Market Committee, he has a detailed knowledge of UK and EU procurement legislation procurement and is a seasoned agitator for innovation in procurement and the procurement of innovation. Since 2019, he has been an Associate Director with Connected Places Catapult and Chairs the Innovative and Strategic Procurement Research Consortium that CPC has established with the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester. He led a Local Government Taskforce on Innovation Procurement which produced a widely read report in 2017.

Kieran is a solicitor specialising in public procurement law and subsidy control. He is currently employed within the legal team at Newcastle City Council. Kieran also provides advice to the North of Tyne Combined Authority (NTCA) and North East Local Enterprise Partnership (NELEP). Kieran is the National Lead Officer for procurement law within Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) and sits on the executive committee of the Procurement Lawyers' Association (PLA).

Caroline Nicholas is a Senior Legal Officer with the International Trade Law Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs (the UNCITRAL Secretariat). She has served as Secretary to its Working Group on Procurement and Infrastructure Development, which drafted the UNCITRAL Model Law on Public Procurement (issued in 2011), an accompanying Guide to Enactment (2012), and other UNCITRAL documents in the field. As Secretary to this and other UNCITRAL Working Groups, she provides legal and policy advice and works in partnership with other international bodies engaged in public procurement policy activities. She advises on public procurement reform and its role in supporting international trade and development and the rule of law, and provides regular technical assistance to national governments in all regions.

She also serves as a Chairman of a UN Performance Appraisal Rebuttal Panel, and undertakes voluntary policy advice and conflict resolution roles within the UN Secretariat.

She previously advised on international war damage claims at the UN Compensation Commission, was a UN internal investigator, and has practised law in the City of London and Hong Kong.

Caroline is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales and of the Supreme Court of Hong Kong, an Associate of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Vienna International School. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Public Procurement Law Review and regular contributor to it and other journals. She is married with three children, and speaks four languages fluently.

Kristen leads Open Contracting Partnership’s global advocacy, building on her 15 years’ experience in policy advocacy, strategic communications and campaigning. She is passionate about all things open government, open tech and open data, having previously served as Communications and Campaigns Director at the Web Foundation where she managed external communications for web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee and open data initiatives including the early stages of Open Ownership.

She has consulted and advised a number of NGOs, multilateral organizations, governments and businesses on their public reputation and external affairs, including during high stakes crises in the areas of peace and security, financial crime and corruption. Her consultancy clients have included: Kofi Annan Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Africa Progress Panel, Google, Orange, The Elders, Omidyar Network, Millicom, UN Women, UN Population Fund and a number of governments in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. Kristen began her career with roles for the US and German governments in foreign investment and trade, with stints in Mexico City and Shanghai.

Professor Albert Sanchez-Graells is a Professor of Economic Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Global Law and Innovation at the University of Bristol Law School, as well as a former Member of the European Commission Stakeholder Expert Group on Public Procurement. Albert specialises in EU economic law and, in particular, competition and public procurement. Albert is currently researching the impact of digital technologies such as big data, machine learning, blockchain and the internet of things on procurement governance and sustainability. Most of Albert's working papers are available at http://ssrn.com/author=542893. His analysis of current legal developments is published in his blog http://www.howtocrackanut.com.