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

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Depiction of Creating a market for negative emissions

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