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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.
22 minute read | February.16.2022