Treviso Antitrust Conference

Pietro Merlino

Legance

Pietro Merlino is a partner in the Antitrust, EU department at Legance and focuses on EU and Italian competition law. He assists clients in connection with the application of EU and Italian competition rules across a wide range of sectors (from life sciences to energy, tech and digital economy, banking, insurance, transportations, consumer goods). Pietro advises and represents international and Italian clients in all areas of competition law, including abuse of dominance, cartel and restrictive practices investigations, merger control, civil antitrust litigation, licensing and distribution, as well as on consumer protection, foreign investment control and general EU law issues. Pietro appears frequently before the EU courts in Luxembourg and the Italian civil and administrative courts, as well as before the Directorate General for Competition of the European Commission and the Italian Competition Authority.

Pietro is distinguished as a leading professional in EU, regulatory and competition law in Italy by all major legal directories and rankings, including Chambers and Partners, The Legal 500, Global Competition Review, Lexology Index and Milano Finanza. Over the years, he has developed a strong, specific expertise in the application of competition rules in the life sciences sector, where he has been involved in some of the most prominent EU and Italian antitrust matters of the last two decades, as well as on the interplay between antitrust law and intellectual property rights. 

Pietro has authored numerous publications on competition law, lectures at several Italian universities and is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad. He received LL.M. degrees from the University of Michigan Law School (where he was a Fulbright Scholar) in 1999 and from the College of Europe in Bruges in 1998, and a J.D. degree, summa cum laude, from the Università degli Studi di Napoli 'Federico II' in 1996. Pietro also holds a Ph.D. in EU competition law from the same University (2004). His native language is Italian, and he is fluent in English and French.