Lydia Rachianioti

• Advising clients on the Payment Services Directive (PSD2), the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), the Payment Services Regulations in the UK (PSRs), and related payment industry initiatives, including registration as a payment institution and provision of regulated payment services under the PSD2.
• Advising clients on the rules and regulations, and related registrations, of card associations/card schemes in Europe.
• Representing and advising a global payments service provider on an antitrust damages claim brought before the English courts.
• Advising a digital platform on the EU competition law theories of harm applicable to the digital economy.
• Advising clients on general regulatory compliance issues with regards to financial services and antitrust.

Lydia Rachianioti is an associate in Alston & Bird’s Financial Services & Products Group in London. She advises on a wide range of regulatory matters in the European Union, and focuses her practice on the payments industry, as well as competition law in the financial services and digital sectors. Lydia also advises on antitrust damages actions across the UK and the EU.

Before joining the firm, Lydia worked on competition and commercial litigation cases, as well as on banking and finance matters at London law firms. In Greece, Lydia worked for a law firm providing legal services in commercial and corporate law, where she concentrated on competition and intellectual property law.

Lydia earned an LL.B. in Greece and also holds an LL.M. in Competition, Innovation and Trade Law at the London School of Economics & Political Science, with a strong focus  on digital markets and the intersection between competition and intellectual property law.

Languages

• English
• Greek
• French

Bar Admissions

• Greece

Education

• London School of Economics & Political Science (LL.M., 2018)
• Democritus University of Thrace (LL.B., 2016)