Pietro Merlino

Partner

Rom

Pietro Merlino is the head of Orrick’s Italian Antitrust & Competition practice group, based in the Rome office.

Pietro 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). He advises and represents international and Italian clients in all areas of competition law, including abuse of dominance, cartel and restrictive practices investigations, merger control, licensing and distribution, as well as on consumer protection and on general EU law issues.

He 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.

Over the years, Pietro has developed a particularly strong expertise in the application of competition rules in the life sciences’ sector, where he was involved in some of the most prominent antitrust cases of the last decade, as well as in the energy and transport sectors. He has also focused extensively on the interplay between antitrust law and Intellectual property rights.

Pietro is recognised as a leading professional for EU, regulatory and competition law in Italy by, among others, Chambers and Partners, The Legal 500 and the Global Competition Review, as well as for healthcare and life sciences by The Legal 500 and the most reputed Italian legal directories. Pietro was honored as the Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Lawyer of the Year at the 2023 TopLegal Industry Awards, as the Competition & Regulatory Lawyer of the Year at the 2021 TopLegal Awards and as the Consumer Protection Lawyer of the Year at the 2020 Legalcommunity Litigation Awards. In the Legal 500 EMEA 2022 guide, a source states ‘Pietro Merlino is a lawyer, who in addition to being highly competent, is very brilliant and imaginative. Thanks to this, he is able to identify winning solutions that are not within everyone’s reach.‘

Pietro authored numerous publications on competition law. He lectures at various Italian universities – most recently at LUISS University and at Università degli Studi Roma Tre – and regularly participates as a speaker at conferences and seminars in Italy and abroad.

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D: +39 06 4521 3958
E:[email protected]

Adresse:

Piazza della Croce Rossa, 2
Rome, 00161
Italy

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Tätigkeitsgebiete

Zugelassen in
- Italy
Weitere Zulassungen
Supreme Court of Cassation
Ausbildung
- Università Federico II, Naples, Ph.D., EU competition law, 2004
- University of Michigan Law School, LL.M., 1999, Fulbright Scholar, Merit Award for outstanding performance in EU Antitrust
- College of Europe at Bruges, Belgium, LL.M., Advanced European Legal Studies, 1998, Mention: Très Bien
- Università Federico II, Naples, Facoltà di Giurisprudenza, J.D., 1996, summa cum laude
Auszeichnungen
- Top Legal Industry Awards – Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences Lawyer of the Year (2023)
- Chambers Europe 2022 – Italy – Leading Professional for Competition/European Law (since 2013)
- Legal500 EMEA 2022 – Italy – Leading Professional for EU and Competition Law (since 2013)
- Top Legal Awards - Competition and Regulatory Lawyer of the Year (2021)
- Legalcommunity Litigation Awards - Consumer Protection Lawyer of the Year (2020)
- GCR 100 2023 – Global Competition Review – Leading Professional in Competition Law in Italy (since 2017)
- Who's Who Legal 2022 (global and national guides) – Leading Professional in Competition Law in Italy (since 2016)
- Top Legal 2022 – Leading Professional in Competition/EU law (since 2016)
- Euromoney’s Competition & Antitrust Expert Guides – Italy – Leading Professional in Competition Law (since 2016)
- Milano Finanza 2020 – Élite/Band 1 for Competition Law
Sprachen
- Italian
- English
- French
Mitgliedschaften
- Associazione Antitrust Italiana
- Concorrenze
- Associazione Italiana Giuristi Europei
- Società Italiana degli Avvocati Amministrativisti
Reden und Fachvorträge
Lectures
- Relationships between antitrust and intellectual property in the pharmaceutical sector, Master of II° level in Business Law of LUISS School of Law in collaboration with Associazione Italiana Giuristi d’impresa (A.Y. 2021/2022 and 2020/2021).
- Abuse of Dominant Position and IPRs, European Competition Law Course, Università degli Studi Roma Tre (A.Y. 2020/2021, 2019/2020, 2018/2019, 2017/2018 and 2016/2017).
- Relationships between antitrust and intellectual property in the pharmaceutical sector, High qualification course “Il Sistema sanitario e le imprese farmaceutiche” of Link Campus University in collaboration with Farmindustria (2020).
- Antitrust, Big Data and personal data protection, Master of II° level in Business Law of LUISS School of Law in collaboration with Associazione Italiana Giuristi d’impresa (A.A. 2019-2020).
- Abuse of Dominant Position and IPRs, Florence Competition Forum, European University Institute of Fiesole (A.Y. 2017/2018).
- Antitrust and Intellectual Property, Master in European Union Law, Università degli studi di Napoli ‘Federico II’ (A.Y. 2009/2010).
- Lecture at the IPR session of the Master in International Business Law, Università degli Studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’ (A.Y. 2009/2010 and 2008/2009).
- Abuse of Dominant Position, Post-Graduate Course in Economic Law and Competition in the European Union – Law & Business in Europe, Istituto Universitario di Studi Europei di Torino (A.Y. 2008/2009).
- Antitrust and Intellectual Property, Transatlantic Intellectual Property Summer Academy, Università Bocconi di Milano (2007).
Conferences
- Lear Competition Festival, “The Rise of Antitrust Enforcement in Labor Markets: a Transatlantic Discussion”, Rome, 23 September 2022.
- Lear Competition Festival, “Life Sciences regulation and competition rules: an interplay that needs some fixing?”, Rome, 11 June 2021.
- Seminar of Concorrenze in the session titled “Conversation with Antonio Tizzano on 'the State of the (European) Union'”, Rome, 21 May 2020.
- Seminar of Concorrenze in the session entitled “Roche/Novartis – implications and perspectives”, Rome, 7 November 2019.
- V National Conference of the Italian Antitrust Association, “Main Developments in European and Italian Competition Law”, in the session “Horizontal restraints: by object, by effect and standard of proof”, Florence, May 2019.
- XIII Treviso Antitrust Conference, “Antitrust Between EU Law and National Law”, in the session “Business and Market”, Treviso, May 2018.
- Conference “Competition law, IP and Regulation in the Pharmaceutical Sector”, Università degli Studi Roma Tre, November 2017.
- IV National Conference of the Italian Antitrust Association, “Main Developments in European and Italian Competition Law”, in the session “Not Only Europe: The Challenges of Antitrust Enforcement in the New Millenium”, Capri, May 2017.
- 25th Annual EU Pharmaceutical Law Forum 2016, Informa, with a presentation titled “The Italian Roche/Novartis Case”, Brussels, May 2016.
- Competition Law in the Pharma Sector 2014, IBC Legal, with a presentation titled “Co-operative Agreements: (i) Licensing and Off-label Use in light of the Italian Roche/Novartis Case; and (ii) Co-marketing and Co-promotion”, Brussels, November 2014.
- Piercing the Corporate Veil: A practical approach, AIJA – Association Internationale des Jeunes Avocats, with a presentation titled “Piercing the Corporate Veil in Antitrust Cases: the Notion of Parental Liability under Competition Rules in Europe”, Rome, October 2013.
- Seventh Annual Conference of the Italian Society for Law and Economics, Università degli Studi di Torino, with a presentation titled “The Duty to Invest in the Development of Infrastructures: Some Considerations on Two Parallel Stories”, Torino, December 2011.
- Best Practices for Preventing Antitrust Infringements and Unfair Commercial Practices, Rome Bar Association and Eni S.p.A., Rome, April 2011.
Publikationen
- The chapter entitled “Abuse of dominant position and intellectual property rights”, in the volume “Trattato di diritto antitrust”, Giuffrè, February 2021.
- The chapter entitled “Antitrust and Data Protection Law: A Relationship in Search of Clear Boundaries”, in the volume “Antitrust between EU and National Law, XIII Conference”, published by Larcier, 2019.
- The chapter “Antitrust Assessment of Co-marketing Agreements: a Diverging Approach between EU and Italy?” (co-author) in Competition and Patent Law in the Pharmaceutical Sector. An International Perspective, Kluwer Law International, 2016.
- “Edison: a Glimpse of Hope for Parent Companies Seeking to Rebut the Parental Liability Presumption?”, Journal of European Competition Law &Practice, 2014 (Vol.5, Issue 7)
- “Strategic Underinvestment as an Abuse of Dominance under EU Competition Rules” (co-author), World Competition, 2013 (Issue 4)
- “The Duty to Invest in the Development of Infrastructures: Some Considerations on Two Parallel Stories”(co-author), Mercato Concorrenza Regole, 2012 (Issue 2).

Pietro Merlino

Pietro Merlino is the head of Orrick’s Italian Antitrust & Competition practice group, based in the Rome office.

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