Portrait of Sahar Shamsi, CFA

Sahar Shamsi, CFA Partner

We engaged Sahar and the team at Oxera to provide expert opinion on a hotly contested price control dispute. To meet this challenge required Sahar and her team to deploy their world class technical expertise, whilst maintaining sufficient flexibility and resourcefulness to respond to the issues at hand. Our client achieved a truly amazing result which was in no small part due to Oxera's work

Partner, Collas Crill LLP

Sahar jointly leads Oxera’s Energy and Climate Economics teams. She specialises in finance, with a focus on the economic regulation of utilities. She has advised companies and regulators across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Australasia. Sahar has been seconded as a lead Economic Adviser to the UK Competition Commission (now the Competition and Markets Authority, CMA) to advise on regulatory finance issues.

Sahar has given expert evidence in the UK and internationally, including in Austria, the Channel Islands and New Zealand, on financial issues in price controls. She has prepared expert evidence on finance and competition issues in many UK High Court proceedings, as well as in international tribunals such as ICSID. Sahar leads the delivery of finance modules in Oxera’s Utility Regulation and Utility Finance courses. She has also taught the postgraduate course in Economics for Competition Law at King’s College London, and delivered training on damages valuation to national judges on behalf of the European Commission. Sahar is listed as an Energy Expert in the Who’s Who Legal: Thought Leaders – Global Elite guide to leading lawyers and experts in the field worldwide.

Sahar speaks English.

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7776 6624

Sahar's specialisms include:

Selected
professional experience

  • Directed Oxera’s independent review of the UK energy retail market on behalf of Ofgem’s Board (2022)

  • Policy advice in an Article 101(3) case on the grounds of sustainability for Dutch carbon capture and storage (2022)

  • Market design advice on integrating negative emissions in the UK Emissions Trading Scheme on behalf of Drax Group, presented to BEIS and HMT (2021‒22)

  • Prepared expert evidence on financial issues including at the European Court of Justice, on behalf of ComReg Ireland (2017–22)

  • Financial advice on projected risk and returns, to an investment consortium for transport networks in UK Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (2021)

  • Regulatory market design in the transition to net zero including hydrogen roll-out in the New Zealand gas industry (2021)

Selected
publications

  • Shamsi, S. (2020), ‘Expert view: “Legitimacy means balancing affordability and financeability”’, Utility Week, March.

  • Shamsi, S. (2018), ‘Expert view: Creating a flexible framework for energy regulation’, Utility Week, June.

  • Shamsi, S. (2018), ‘The evolution of UK energy regulation’, Utility Week, September.

  • Kristensen, J., Jenkins, H. and Shamsi, S. (2018), ‘Forum: Energy Investigations’, Special Report, Financier Worldwide Magazine, October.

  • Shamsi, S., Solomon, P. and Robins, N. (2017), ‘Compensatory measures in the banking sector’, chapter 6, in F.-C. Laprévote, J. Gray and F. de Cecco (eds), Research Handbook on State Aid in the Banking Sector, Edward Elgar Publishing.

  • Robins, N. and Shamsi, S. (2016), ‘The European Commission’s State Aid Clampdown: The End of “Selective” Tax Rulings?’, Derivatives & Financial Instruments, 18:1, February.

Qualifications

  • MA Economics and Management, University of Oxford, UK, UK

  • Sahar Shamsi is a CFA® charterholder


Download Full CV

Latest Insights:  Sahar Shamsi

Agenda
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Depiction of RIIO-ED2 Final Determinations

RIIO-ED2 Final Determinations

On 30 November 2022, Ofgem published its Final Determinations (FDs) for the RIIO-ED2 price control covering the electricity distribution (ED) sector for the next five years from April 2023 to…
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Depiction of RIIO-ED2 Draft Determinations

RIIO-ED2 Draft Determinations

On 29 June 2022, Ofgem published its Draft Determinations (DDs) for the RIIO-ED2 price control covering the electricity distribution (ED) sector. The regulatory cycle for the ED sector follows that…
Events

Berlin Discussion Forum

Transition from Gas Markets to Hydrogen Markets Over the summer, the transition to hydrogen has gained further momentum. The direction of travel has become clearer with the approval of the European Commission’s €2bn government funding for thyssenkrupp Steel’s “tkH2Steel” decarbonization project, the EU Delegated Acts on Renewable Hydrogen approval in… Read More

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Courses

Utility regulation and finance: Principles of economic regulation

Over the course of more than 40 years, Oxera has developed and run training courses to help companies, regulators, investors, policymakers and lawyers to develop their knowledge of economic regulation and understand the key building blocks of a price review. The decisions that economic regulators make shape the revenues that… Read More

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