CONTACT
Email: irena@dalir.co.uk
Tel: + 44 (0) 203 752 6525
EDUCATION
PhD in Law
University of Nantes
Masters in EU Law
University Pantheon-Assas Paris II
ADMISSIONS
Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England & Wales
Avocat à la Cour de Paris
General Background
Dr Irena Dajkovic, the Founding and Managing Partner of DALIR Law Firm, is a lawyer with a combination of about twenty years of private practice and in-house experience in commercial, corporate and regulatory laws.
Over the years, her clients ranged from financial institutions, private equity firms, retail companies to private individuals. She focuses on clients’ goals and has often been praised by them for her excellent technical skills, strategic advice and high ethical standards. She has helped numerous clients to expand globally and optimise their intra-group operations.
Specific FinTech Experience
Dr Dajkovic has been advising fintech clients, including existing Payment Service Providers and online platforms, on the recent EU Payment Services Directive 2, its implementing national legislations, and their impact on their business (e.g. standard terms & conditions, operations, existing processes, licencing requirements etc.). Before founding DALIR Law Firm, Dr Dajkovic was the General Counsel and the Head of Compliance of Checkout.com, an international merchant acquirer and a principal member of leading card schemes such as Visa, MasterCard, Amex, and JCB. She helped them obtain and/or maintain the card schemes and regulatory licences, negotiated major deals with international merchants and banks, and over time built a strong legal team. In this role, she was also in the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)’s controlling function as the PSD individual and the main legal contact for all regulatory relationships (i.e. FCA, National Crime Agency, Information Commissioner’s Office etc.).
Before joining Checkout.com Dr Dajkovic worked with an international legal consultancy, Axiom, for clients such as WorldPay and PayPal. While advising WorldPay, and as their representative, Dr Dajkovic was one of the initiators of the European Payments Institutions Federation (EPIF), a trade association created at the time to promote the interests of the newly created EEA payment institutions.
Dr Dajkovic’s experience in private practice was predominantly with Clifford Chance, a large international law firm, where she spent several years working in the competition & financial regulatory teams. During that time, she advised, among others, on the EU Payment Service Directive 1, its national transpositions and interpretations, and related licensing issues. She was also seconded to the European Payments Council (EPC), where she was in charge of drafting and advising on SEPA Rulebooks, leading the EPC Legal Support Group and advising various other EPC working groups, in addition to dealing with day-to-day payments-related commercial issues.
Selected Publications
Competition Law and Policy in the Western Balkans, European Competition Law Review, Volume 32 (2011), Issue 8.
Comments on the New State Aid Law in Serbia in the Context of Serbia’s Accession to the EU, European State Aid Law Quarterly, Volume 9 (2010), Issue 2.
Comments on the new Serbian Competition law, European Competition Law Review, February, Volume 31 (2010), Issue 2.
Whither competition law in Montenegro: Current status and future challenges, European Competition Law Review, Volume 28 (2008), Issue 2.
Influence of the European Community Law on Public Regulatory Systems for Competition in Eastern European Countries, Revue Internationale de Droit Economique/International Review of Economic Law, Volume 20 (2006) Issue 4.
Power Sector Reform in Early Transition Countries: Where now?, Law in Transition online, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Issue Autumn 2004.
Competing to reform: An analysis of the New Competition law in Albania, European Competition Law Review, Volume 25 (2004) Issue 12.
Transition to a competitive telecommunications market: the application of competition rules in the telecommunications sector, Law in transition, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Issue Spring 2004.
Influence of the European Community Law on Public Regulatory Systems for Competition in Eastern European Countries, PhD thesis, March 2006, 2 Volumes (587pages and 899pages).
Enforcing Contracts in Transition Economies, Contractual Rights and Obligations in Central Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Assistant Editor, 2005, British Institute of International and Comparative Law.
Anti-monopoly Law (Antimonopolsko pravo), a book on the influence of EU Law on the laws of central, eastern and south-eastern Europe in the area of competition and regulation, 2001, published by CID, Podgorica, Montenegro.
Speaker and/or Convener of the following selected conferences:
Clifford Chance International Merger Matrix Conference, London, spring 2008.
International Competition Network (ICN) Annual Conference, Challenges faced by Competition Authorities during Economic Transformation, Moscow, 29 May 2007.
International Panel on Fair Competition, EBRD Annual Meeting 2004, London, May 2004.
EBRD International Contract Enforcement Conference, London, December 2003, in association with the British Institute for International Comparative Law.
EBRD Central Asia Regional Telecommunications Sector Development Conference, in Almaty, Kazakhstan, October 2003, in association with the World Bank and regional governments.