CRA Competition experts were retained globally by Worldpay, helping it successfully complete its acquisition of Global Payments.
On 1 December, the European Commission cleared the $24.25bn acquisition of Worldpay by Global Payments unconditionally in Phase I, following the CMA’s clearance on 20 October 2025 and the expiration of the HSR waiting period on 18 July 2025.
Global Payments and Worldpay are both active in merchant acquiring and related services, primarily in the US, UK, Ireland, as well as several other EEA and RoW countries. In Europe, the agencies examined the closeness of competition between the parties in supplying merchant acquiring services to both Enterprise and SMB customers, and concluded that the acquisition would not raise competition concerns as the parties were not each other’s closest competitors and multiple credible competitors remained in the market.
The CRA team led by Oliver Latham, Elina Koustoumpardi, and Kenneth Kerr — including Ed Spiers, Lorenzo Comito, Yahnis Adje, Filippo Raschia, and Shuichi Chiba — advised Worldpay on the European and RoW notifications. A US team led by Elizabeth Bailey and Yianis Sarafidis — including Olga Ukhaneva, Elena Bisagni, and Cristian Figueroa — advised Worldpay on the FTC and other RoW notifications.
