Senior Counsel, Competition and Disputes (Bangkok-based, Relocation Provided)

About Agoda

At Agoda, we bridge the world through travel. Our story began in 2005, when two lifelong friends and entrepreneurs, driven by their passion for travel, launched Agoda to make it easier for everyone to explore the world.

Today, we are part of Booking Holdings [NASDAQ: BKNG], with a diverse team of over 7,000 people from 90 countries, working together in offices around the globe. Every day, we connect people to destinations and experiences, with our great deals across our millions of hotels and holiday properties, flights, and experiences worldwide.

No two days are the same at Agoda. Data and technology are at the heart of our culture, fueling our curiosity and innovation. If you’re ready to begin your best journey and help build travel for the world, join us.

About the Role:

Agoda is a global digital travel platform operating across diverse and rapidly evolving markets. We are looking for an experienced commercially minded and highly motivated lawyer to help the business navigate complex competition, regulatory, consumer and disputes issues across APAC, Europe and other key markets. This role would suit a competition lawyer, disputes or a regulatory (with competition experience) who is keen to work across a broad range of matters in a fast-moving digital platform business with a global footprint.

The successful candidate will support the business on competition and antitrust issues, regulatory inquiries, litigation and dispute-resolution matters, consumer-protection issues and related commercial/regulatory risks across multiple jurisdictions, with a particular focus on APAC and Europe. The role requires sound legal judgment, strong analytical skills, the ability to manage complex multi-jurisdictional matters, and a practical, business-oriented approach to risk. The candidate should be comfortable working with cross-functional teams, coordinating external counsel, advising senior stakeholders, and helping the business move quickly while maintaining strong legal and compliance standards.

Key Responsibilities:

Competition, Regulatory and Disputes Matters:

• Competition Law Advisory: Advise business stakeholders on potential competition-law risks, including distribution arrangements, pricing, collaborations, information exchange and general platform conduct.
• Regulatory Inquiries/Engagement: Support regulatory inquiries, investigations, dawn-raid preparedness and responses to competition authorities and other regulators.
• Litigation and Dispute Resolution: Manage and support contentious matters, including commercial disputes, consumer claims, litigation, arbitration and pre-action strategy.
• Regulatory readiness: ensuring relevant business teams are made aware of upcoming legislation or regulations with material impact (leveraging internal and external resources including AI). Working with the Government Affairs team to provide input to regulators and governments on legislative proposals, in particular in relation to competition law and platform regulation.
• External Counsel Management: Coordinate external counsel, develop case strategy, manage evidence and document-preservation processes, and monitor legal spend.
• Consumer and Platform Regulation: Provide practical advice on consumer, advertising, unfair-commercial-practices, platform regulation and broader regulatory issues that intersect with disputes and competition work.
• Risk Management: Identify legal risks early and develop proportionate, commercially workable mitigation strategies for the business.
• Training and Compliance Materials: Deliver training and help maintain policies, playbooks, templates and compliance guidance.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work closely with Legal colleagues and stakeholders across Product, Supply, Marketing, Customer Experience, Finance, Government Affairs and leadership teams.
• Turning legal advice into action: Work with stakeholders to move from legal analysis to implementation; helping teams understand their options, make informed decisions and execute the solutions.

Core Skills and Requirements:

• Qualified lawyer with at least 5+ years’ PQE in competition/antitrust, disputes/litigation, regulatory or consumer law, with a strong preference for competition law experience.
• Strong APAC and/or EU competition, consumer or digital-regulation experience would be an advantage.
• Experience managing investigations, regulatory engagement, complex disputes, litigation strategy or external counsel.
• Able to provide well-reasoned, practical and commercially balanced legal advice on complex, fast-moving matters.
• Able to communicate effectively with business teams, the global Legal team, senior stakeholders and external counsel.
• Self-starter who can is comfortable taking ownership of complex multi-jurisdictional matters with appropriate supervision, creates structure where none exists and know when to escalate.
• Strong written and verbal English; excellent drafting, analytical and stakeholder-management skills.

Additional Skills:

• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with sound judgment and attention to detail.
• Excellent academic credentials and experience working in a top-tier law firm and/or in-house legal team at a multinational company.
• Experience with travel, technology, online platforms, fintech or another regulated digital business is preferred.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a large, diverse and collaborative team.
• A demonstrated can-do, roll-up-your-sleeves approach, coupled with a strong work ethic and high integrity. You would rather get the right answer than the credit.
• Ability to contribute at both the strategic and detailed levels, working collaboratively with colleagues and business teams to get things done.
• Experience contributing to policies, procedures, training materials, playbooks or templates that improve legal efficiency and compliance.
• Experience of using AI in an efficient and scalable manner.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary and performance-based bonuses.
• Health and wellness