The EU Competition Law Private Enforcement Forum 2025 - 2nd Annual

María Pérez handles the resolution of disputes arising from antitrust enforcement, distribution and agency agreements, unfair competition, M&A transactions, energy and telecommunications.

She has extensive experience in mass litigation with multi-jurisdictional implications. She has represented large multinationals in the automotive, distribution, audiovisual, infrastructure, energy and telecommunications sectors, resolving disputes of various kinds through litigation and arbitration. She currently focuses on civil damages actions for breach of competition law and is involved in leading national and international cases, including the trucks, cars, decennial insurance, railway bearings and fruit and vegetable packaging cartels among others. She also provides pre-litigation advice in complex cases and in settlement negotiations.

Maria regularly advises on regulatory telecommunication matters as well. Her clients in this area of expertise include some of the largest corporations worldwide, such as Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook. She completed a secondment at Hausfeld LLP in 2011.

Maria is vice-president of the Spanish Business Litigation Club. She is a member of the Madrid Bar Association, the Private Enforcement Committee of the Spanish Association for Defence of Competition, and the Spanish and Iberoamerican Arbitration Club.

Dr. Alex Petrasincu is a partner and serves as Head of Competition and Litigation at Hausfeld in Germany. Until the end of 2024, he was also Managing Partner of Hausfeld in Germany.

Alex is specialized in representing parties in cartel damages actions before the German courts, and has advised on damages actions in various jurisdictions. Alex has represented parties in and advised on actions before numerous German District Courts, Courts of Appeals, the German Constitutional Court, as well as the European Court of Justice. In addition, Alex has particular experience in conducting internal investigations and representing clients in cartel investigations by the European Commission and the German Federal Cartel Office. His activities for companies affected by the truck cartel as well as for trading companies in the proceedings against German banking associations regarding the merchant fees for the electronic cash system have attracted special attention.

The business magazine Wirtschaftswoche and Handelsblatt have named him one of the leading German antitrust lawyers. In 2019 he was also awarded the Client Choice Award in the field of antitrust law in Germany by Lexology. For years, Alex Petrasincu has been listed as one of the leading German antitrust lawyers by the magazines Juve, Legal 500 and Who's Who Legal.

Ana Rita Barroca is a lawyer with 17 years' experience in civil and corporate litigation.Her initial training led her to specialize in complex litigation related to contractual and non-contractual liability, as well as corporate governance and company law.From 2007 until July 2018, Ana Rita taught as a guest lecturer at the Castelo Branco Polytechnic Institute, where she was responsible for the subject of Health Law.Later, she continued her studies in the area of administrative law, completing her research master's degree ("summa cum laude") with a dissertation on public procurement "in house" entitled "The Principle of Competition in Public Procurement without Competition".

Joost is a Principal in RBB’s Brussels office. He has extensive experience in competition matters before the European Commission and the French and Belgian competition authorities. A Belgian national, he is fluent in Dutch, English and French.

Since joining RBB in 2014, Joost has worked extensively on competition matters before the European Commission, as well various national competition authorities. His experience spans a wide range of matters, including mergers involving both horizontal and vertical issues, alleged information exchanges and private litigation cases.

Joost holds a PhD in Economics from Ghent University, Belgium, and studied Economics at Ghent University and Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve. He also has extensive experience working as a Data Scientist in various fields, including transport and mobility, marketing and online search.