Rob Bratby

Rob Bratby is an English solicitor specialising in UK telecoms regulation, data protection and payments regulation. He provides regulatory, transactional and commercial advice to telecoms operators, payment service providers, fintechs and private equity investors.

He advises on all aspects of telecoms, data protection and payments regulation: from securing market entry and regulatory authorisations, through compliance with sector-specific rules, to using regulation as a source of competitive advantage. He also advises on sector-specific transactions, including joint ventures, shareholder agreements, network-sharing arrangements, MVNO agreements, subsea cable projects, SaaS platform deals and M&A with a significant regulatory dimension.

Rob regularly acts as co-counsel to larger law firms on transactions requiring deep sector expertise in telecoms, data or payments. He also holds Fractional General Counsel appointments at UK Payments Initiative Limited, The One Touch Switching Company (TOTSCo), TelXL Limited and Core.

Rob has over 30 years of experience. He has been a partner at leading UK and US law firms (including Olswang and Arnold & Porter) in London and Singapore, worked at the UK telecoms regulator (Oftel, now Ofcom) and served as General Counsel at a leading European telecoms carrier. He is ranked in Chambers UK (Telecommunications) and Legal 500 (Leading Partner, Telecoms) and has been consistently ranked as a leading practitioner for over 20 years.

Rob read Law and Natural Sciences at St. John’s College, Cambridge (UK), holds a Diploma in Intellectual Property Law and Practice from Bristol University, an MBA from Henley Business School and is an alumnus of the INSEAD International Directors’ programme.

Rob qualified as an English solicitor in 1996 and between 2011 and 2016 was admitted as a foreign law practitioner in Singapore. He founded Bratby Law, a specialist UK telecoms, data protection and payments regulation practice, in 2020. He is a member of the International Bar Association Communications and Technology Law committees.

Rob has blogged since 2010 and has been contributing editor to the International Comparative Legal Guide to Telecoms, Media and Internet laws as well as speaking at legal and industry conferences.

Rob is a native English speaker. Although he calls London home, he regularly travels to Italy and Singapore.