The European Class Actions Forum 2025

Maria is an Associate Professor at  Paris-Saclay University, lecturer at Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University and participates in trainings for judges and lawyers. She holds a PhD on Collective actions in Comparative law under a comparative perspective and is the author of hundreds of publications written in English, French and Spanish. 

Maria José founded the Observatory of group actions and other forms of collective redress and is a qualified lawyer at the Bars of Paris and of Buenos Aires. As an expert in collective redress, she advices third party funders and a major claim administrator. 

Holding the first European professorship in collective redress since 2007, Ianika is a pioneer in the field. She combines academia with practice and is internationally recognised for her knowledge of strategies for resolving cross-border mass disputes, using innovative litigation and alternative dispute resolution approaches.

She was a partner with a large litigation boutique where she was member of the Financial and Commercial Litigation practice group and has also worked in-house for two publicly listed litigation funders. Having assisted corporate clients, claim vehicles, litigation funders, governmental and non-profit organisations, ‘bookbuild’ entities, case originators, Dutch and foreign legal counsel on all aspects of mass claim dispute resolution, Ianika is a ‘mass claims all-rounder’ who is sought after for legal opinions and the structuring and implementation of creative litigation strategies in multi-jurisdictional disputes, particularly in the areas of investor protection, competition, data privacy, product liability and consumer law. Additionally, Ianika assists high-net-worth individuals, family businesses, corporate clients and foreign law firms with litigation project management in complex high-profile commercial disputes, involving the use of PR and litigation financing. She has also a keen interest in multi-jurisdictional asset tracing and enforcement.

Michele Carpagnano is a partner in Dentons' Rome office and the head of the Italian Competition and Antitrust practice.

He teaches Competition Law at Trento University Faculty of Law (Italy).

Michele provides national and multinational companies with legal advice and judicial assistance in all aspects of Italian, Spanish and EU Competition Law, Foreign Investment Screening Laws, Consumer Law, State aid Law, Merger Control, antitrust issues related to tender procedures (bid rigging) and markets regulations.

He represents national and multinational companies as well as public institutions in administrative proceedings before the Italian Competition Authority and Administrative Courts.

He also represents clients in Competition / Consumer laws litigation - both single and class actions claims - before Italian Courts.

Michele assists clients in the design and implementation of tailored Antitrust and Consumer Law compliance programs.

He advised local, national and EU Institutions on legislative / regulatory proposals related to Competition and Consumer laws.

Practicing in the area of commercial litigation and international arbitration, Ozan Akyurek assists large French and international companies in disputes related to product liability, industrial risks, post-acquisition disputes, and business torts. Ozan also has substantive experience in insurance, aviation, and information technology (IT) law.

Ozan is active in diverse industry sectors, including energy, aviation, automotive, IT, transportation, and logistics, as well as steel and retail. He is particularly involved in the aviation and airline industries and has represented major manufacturers and airline companies in aviation litigation.

Ozan also has substantial internal investigation and compliance experience. He recently acted on behalf of a leading chemical company and a U.S. pharmaceutical company in Turkey in conducting investigations focused on anticorruption matters. His experience also includes a criminal investigation related to alleged credit card fraud committed by the employees of a leading U.S. company in Morocco.

In 2012, Ozan was seconded to the Firm's Pittsburgh Office. During his secondment, he acquired substantial experience in product liability, insurance, and aviation law. In particular, he was part of the team representing The Sherwin-Williams Company in lead paint and pigment cases.

Ozan has authored articles on litigation and regulatory matters, such as product liability and aviation law. His articles are published in French economic and legal publications. He also is a lecturer in international business law at the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense.

​Anette Bordes was in-house counsel to TNT Post Group and served as general counsel to Dutch telecom company KPN. In 2012, she was elevated to ​the bench in The Hague District Court’s civil and commercial division, and has worked in that division since that time, currently serving as a Senior Judge in that Court.

Bart-Adriaan de Ruijter is Partner Corporate Litigation at CMS. Bart-Adriaan specialises in corporate and commercial litigation. 

Bart-Adriaan focuses on the representation and advice of companies and/or its management board, supervisory board or shareholder(s) in complex litigation and crisis situations (often involving multiple jurisdictions). His expertise entails (M&A)transaction-related disputes, Enterprise Chamber proceedings, shareholder & joint-venture disputes/activism, (director’s)liability claims, international attachment/execution disputes and conflicts in relation to insolvency/restructuring. Bart-Adriaan is also passionate about and experienced in ESG and climate change & energy related disputes. He is member of the global ESG Task Force of CMS.

Pepijn is a partner at Brinkhof and specializes in competition law, EU law and regulated markets. He represents national and international clients before the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), the European Commission and Dutch and European judges. Pepijn has litigated and argued in a large number of cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Marc Barennes is a partner with Geradin Partners. 

Marc benefits from a unique 360-degree experience in competition litigation and counseling. Over the past 20plus years, he has been a European Commission official (DG COMP), a référendaire (Senior Court Advisor) with the General Court of the European Union, the executive director of a European competition claim aggregator based in Luxembourg, as well as a competition lawyer based in Paris and Brussels. 

As a case and policy officer with DG Competition (2001 and 2003 to 2006), Marc led dawn raids, largely contributed to the development of leniency applications, carried out investigations (RFI and interviews), drafted a Statement of Objections and a fining decision. He also contributed to the drafting of several Commission policy instruments and internal guidelines. 

Charlotte Spierings specialises in litigation relating to commercial disputes, focusing on financial law and related regulatory enforcement, insolvency litigation, and commercial contracts. She also has experience in sanctions advice, corporate litigation and director's liability cases. Charlotte obtained a Ph.D from Radboud University Nijmegen and is a research fellow of the Business and Law Research Center of the same university.

Mr. De Jong is a partner in the Firm’s Amsterdam office. He focuses on collective redress and securities class actions in particular. He has extensive experience in successfully coordinating and resolving international mass claims.

Koen Rutten is one of the founding partners of Finch Dispute Resolution. He is a corporate and financial litigation specialist. Koen has extensive practical experience acting in class actions and collective claims before the Dutch courts. He acts mainly on the plaintiff side. Koen specializes in securities litigation and is acting on behalf of investors in high-profile cases including class actions. He specializes in antitrust cases, but also in consumer related matter. His work covers all industries, but mainly his focus is on banking, telecom and the energy. He advises litigation funders worldwide on the funding of class actions in the Netherlands and is involved in setting up foundation structures to facilitate such class actions or collective claims.

Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., chair of Duane Morris’ Workplace Class Action group, has nearly four decades’ experience of practicing law and has defended some of the most significant bet-the-company cases ever filed against corporate America. Mr. Maatman has represented companies, executive teams and boards across the country in class action litigation, ranging in size from thousands to hundreds of thousands of claims by employees. Among his accomplishments, he defended and defeated the largest systemic enforcement action ever brought in the history of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the first Attorney General prosecution of a Wall Street company for workplace discrimination and harassment, and the largest wage & hour class and collective actions ever brought in Florida and New York. While he is known to be a fierce litigator, he also helps his clients anticipate large-scale litigations risks before they happen to prevent issues that could turn into litigation. Mr. Maatman pioneered the process of conducting employment-practices audits to assist employers in structuring effective and practical personnel policies and protocols. Profiled in The Wall Street Journal, these audits are designed to minimize the incidence of employment-related class action litigation and to maximize management discretion and workplace productivity. He has served as a legal commentator on PBS, NPR, MSNBC, CNBC and U.S. talk radio, and his comments have appeared in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Business Insurance, USA Today, Fortune and Forbes.

Rita is a partner and co-head of the Dispute Resolution practice, specialising in corporate and financial litigation. She has 20 years’ experience, focusing primarily on advising clients, mainly banks, in legal actions relating to financial instruments issued or sold through financial intermediation, civil liability of directors and corporate disputes.

Rita has worked on cases of great significance and complexity, representing leading Portuguese and international banks.

She has a law degree from the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon.

Marie-Hélène is a commercial litigation partner with special interest in insolvency law, the energy sector and arbitration.

Marie-Hélène has a broad background in commercial litigation. She handles complex civil disputes, often in an international context. Marie-Hélène has particular expertise in specialist areas such as securities and insolvency law and the associated liabilities, such as directors' and auditors' liability. In 2013 she completed the postgraduate Grotius specialization course Financing, Securities and Insolvency Law cum laude. Marie-Hélène publishes and teaches in these areas of law. She was the principal teacher for the course Financing, Securities and Insolvency Law at the Netherlands Bar Association.

Ben is a Partner in the Competition group in the Innovation department.

He specialises in competition litigation, commercial litigation, international arbitration and other dispute resolution procedures, and has a wealth of experience acting for major multinational businesses across a broad range of sectors. He is particularly experienced in advising clients on third party funding arrangements and how to manage the financial risks of litigation.

At SÉRVULO since 2015, Alberto Saavedra is partner in the European and Competition department. 

He has vast experience in representing and advising international and domestic companies and public authorities in the areas of merger control, restrictive practices, market dominance, State aid and services of general economic interest, both at national and EU level. He also advises clients on EU law, in particular the Internal Market rules,  foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign subsidies. He also represents clients in Competition / Consumer laws litigation such as class actions claims before Portuguese Courts.

He has experience in a wide range of industries, such as banking, trade and distribution, construction and real estate, energy pharmaceutical, telecommunications and transports.

As an aide to the Secretary of State for the Treasury of the XIX Constitutional Government, he was responsible for matters related with privatisations, concessions, State-owned companies and implementation of the Economic and Financial Assistance Programme in close interaction with the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (“troika”).

He concluded the LL.M – Master of Laws in European and Competition Law at University College London (UCL), in 2009; and obtained a graduate qualification in competition law from King's College London (University of London), in 2006.

Paul Karlsgodt serves as the leader of BakerHostetler’s Privacy and Digital Risk Class Action and Litigation team. He is an international thought leader in class action defense with more than 20 years of experience defending hundreds of consumer class actions.

Paul has significant experience defending class actions in the complex and cutting-edge area of data privacy on behalf of companies and organizations in a variety of industries. He has served as lead counsel for defendants in class action litigation arising out of data breach incidents of all sizes, and affecting numerous industries and governmental entities. He also defends clients in other privacy class actions arising out of corporate digital advertising and customer data collection practices, as well as class actions seeking the recovery of statutory damages.

Esther de Félix specializes in civil and commercial litigation.

She has extensive experience in leading court and arbitration proceedings, and has represented large companies in sectors such as distribution, automotive, energy, infrastructure, life sciences and healthcare.

She currently focuses on damages claims due to breach of competition law, collective actions and on mass litigation.

Tilly Alberga-Smits specializes in commercial litigation, arbitration and mass claims. She regularly represents national and international corporations in complex high profile corporate and commercial disputes.

As an expert in mass claims procedures, she litigates and advises on collective settlements (WCAM) and proceedings regarding collective action claims (WAMCA) and she is an expert in follow-on damages litigation.

Before joining Lemstra Van der Korst, Tilly was part of the dispute resolution team at De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek.

Tilly is a member of the Dutch Association for Procedural Law and the Dutch Arbitration Association.

Maximilian‘s practice covers a broad spectrum of complex commercial litigation, arbitration and alternative dispute resolution. He focuses on securities litigation as well as contract and corporate law disputes. Large cases where Maximilian is currently advising include the defence of two listed companies against damage claims based on allegedly false capital market information and the defence of claims raised in connection with a public takeover. Furthermore, Maximilian represents national and international clients in Post-M&A-disputes before courts and arbitral tribunals.