Judith Aldersey Williams
Judith Aldersey-Williams has 25 years' experience as a commercial lawyer in London and Aberdeen. She advises energy industry clients in the UK and internationally on commercial contracts, including joint operating agreements, major infrastructure projects, gas sales agreements, supply and service contracts and has worked on projects from Angola to Trinidad (she's still hoping for a project in Zambia). She also advises on regulatory issues and competition/antitrust matters.
She has worked closely with Oil & Gas UK on a variety of industry initiatives including the industry standard Decommissioning Security Agreement (DSA) and Joint Operating Agreement. Her career highpoints have been advising Oil & Gas UK in its negotiations with the UK Government over the introduction of ground-breaking contracts to guarantee tax relief for decommissioning and advising the Subsea Well Response Project, a group of nine multinational oil companies, on contracts for the development and funding of innovative equipment which is now available to allow operators around the world better to respond to well control incidents like Macondo.
Recommended by Legal 500 for oil and gas and competition law, she is also rated Band 1 by Chambers 2018 for Oil & Gas in Scotland which states 'Judith Aldersey-Williams is described as "a very smart lawyer" by sources. She is known by those in the market for her high quality work on industry-wide initiatives and regulatory matters.'
Practice Area
Panel
- Consulting Editorial Board
Qualified Year
- 1989
Membership
- TBC
Education
- BA Clare College, Cambridge (graduated 1985)
- LLM Harvard Law School (graduated 1986)
2 Contributions by Judith Aldersey Williams
PRACTICE NOTES
UK and EU competition law in NSTA Strategy Area Plans: compliant exchanges of sensitive oil and gas information, applicable exemptions and defences, and managing the future production by object risk
This Practice Note examines the potential hazards arising from sharing commercially sensitive data within the UK oil and gas (O&G) industry, within the framework and objectives of the NSTA Strategy (whose most recent iteration appeared under the title ‘OGA Strategy’ in 2021, as outlined below). The Practice Note has particular regard to information on proposed future investments and future production, where appropriate, with a view to the preparation of an Area Plan, and it further explains how such exchanges can be undertaken in a manner consistent with UK and EU competition rules in both jurisdictions.
Why is competition law relevant to Area Plans under the NSTA Strategy?
Sharing commercially confidential information among competitors is a type of arrangement that competition authorities have identified as falling within the Chapter I prohibition of the Competition Act 1998 (and Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)) (see Practice Notes: Information exchange under UK competition law and Information exchange under EU competition law and Article 101(1) TFEU—the prohibition on restrictive agreements—overview)...
Energy
PRACTICE NOTES
UKCS Third-Party Access to Upstream Oil and Gas Infrastructure: NSTA Guidance, Energy Act 2011 Determinations, ICoP Process and Competition Law
Background
The United Kingdom Continental Shelf (UKCS) comprises a intricate web of infrastructure evolved over many decades, much of it tailored to the requirements of individual fields, alongside a series of trunk lines. Over time, spare capacity has progressively appeared in pipelines and in processing plant on platforms. At the same time, as a mature basin, the UKCS is seeing smaller discoveries, and few fields remain large enough to justify building wholly new infrastructure. As a result, most new projects need to access third-party systems to reach the shore. In some situations, this involves tapping several separate links along an export route. On the surface, this promises a strong opportunity for both new field owners and infrastructure proprietors. Yet difficulties arise. For many new fields, options for export routing are limited, meaning normal competitive market dynamics may not function effectively. In some cases, the infrastructure may amount to an essential facility under competition law, such that denying access on fair, non-discriminatory terms would amount to an abuse of a dominant position (see Competition issues below)...
Energy
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