ACADEMIC PROGRAMME
Workshop 2
Market Power vs Manpower: When Antitrust and Employment Law Collide
DATE & TIME
LOCATION
🗓️ Tuesday, August 25
🕐 14:30-16:00
📍 Grand Klimt Hall 2
Organised By
Organised by the Antitrust and Labour Law (+ Immigration Law) Commissions, and In-House Counsel Board
Description
Over the past few years, there has been increased interest in antitrust investigations in the employment arena. Non-poaching agreements and wage fixing only scratch the surface of possible antitrust violations in the employment sphere. This practical workshop addresses this new legal landscape from different stakeholder perspectives, including a keynote speaker, interactive panel and small group discussions of a case study to identify actionable solutions.
SPEAKERS
Ludovica Pizzetti
Arnold & Porter
London, United Kingdom
.
Ludovica Pizzetti has over 15 years of experience advising clients on both UK and EU competition law matters. Ludovica has a highly international profile: she is dual-qualified in the UK and Italy and is fluent in Italian, English, and French. Ludovica’s experience in relation to behavioral matters includes advising clients on distribution agreements, licensing, competitor collaborations, pricing and discounting practices, product disparagement, as well as no-poach and other labor-related competition matters. Ludovica has also extensive experience assisting clients in the context of multi-jurisdictional M&A transactions, where she regularly advises on deal structure, overlap analysis, filing requirements, and antitrust risk. In this context, she has extensive experience in securing merger control and FDI clearances and coordinating the work of local counsel around the world.
Juraj Sýrny
Antimonopoly Office
of the Slovak Republic
Bratislava, Slovakia
Juraj is head of the Cartels Department at the Slovak Competition Authority. He oversees investigations and prosecutions of anticompetitive agreements and plays an active role in key investigative measures, including dawn raids, leniency applications, settlement procedures, and oral hearings
Gabriela Vásquez López
Galindo, Arias & López
(GALA)
Panama City, Panama
Gabriela Vásquez is a Senior Associate at Galindo, Arias & López (GALA) in Panama, and a key member of the firms Labor law practice. She advises national and multinational companies on employment matters, including hiring and disciplinary processes, salary concepts for labor and Social Security purposes, compensation and benefits, and termination of employment relationships. Her practice also includes advising on the preparation and implementation of internal policies to prevent labor risks and the development of disciplinary measures. Additionally, she provides assistance to companies regarding procedures before the Social Security Administration, as well as representation in administrative and judicial proceedings in labor matters. She frequently collaborates with corporate
teams in M&A transactions, advising on labor compliance and conducting labor due diligence processes for both buyers and sellers.
Anne Utecht
Hall & Wilcox
Melbourne, Australia
Anne is a solicitor in the corporate & commercial team at Hall & Wilcox, a leading Australian independent full-service firm. Based in Melbourne, Anne advises Australian, European and international clients on competition law and M&A matters, working across both civil law and common law jurisdictions. Anne is dual-qualified in Germany and Australia, and practised in complex dispute resolution in Germany prior to moving down under. She holds a Master of Laws in Transnational Economic Regulation from Monash University (Melbourne).
Anne brings a timely perspective to the panel. Australia is in the midst of significant competition law reform and announced reforms proposing to prohibit no-poach and wage-fixing agreements, both potentially attracting civil and criminal penalties from 2027. These developments sit squarely at the intersection of antitrust and employment law and inform Anne’s contribution to this session.
As an active member of AIJA, Anne is looking forward to drawing on her experience in organising multi-day seminars, general assemblies, and plenary sessions to deliver an interactive workshop and spark lively, engaging discussion.
Cristina Tudoran
Filip & Comapany
Bucharest, Romania
Cristina Tudoran is a partner in the Employment team of Filip & Company since 2023. Cristina combines both consultancy work and litigation, being top ranked by both Chambers Europe and Legal 500 on an annual basis in the last 7 years. In the academic field, Cristina is also conducting seminars on Labour Law for the students in the fourth year at the Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest, as part of her PhD studies with the same university.
As part of her work, Cristina is assisting clients active in various industries (e.g., energy, IT/ tech, banking and financial sector, FMCG pharma, electronics/ appliances, cosmetics producers/ distributor, retail), some of the core and recurrent topics in her activity covering restructurings projects, transactional work, TUPE, collective negotiations, requalification of civil contracts with contractors, individual negotiations for termination cases or managing sensitive situations with top management. In the litigation area, Cristina coordinated cases that reached notorious successes for our clients, privately or publicly owned, saving hundreds of millions of EUR for the companies represented in court.
SESSION COORDINATOR 1
Claire Huijts
Rutgers & Posch
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Claire Huijts is a senior associate in the employment team at Amsterdam based Rutgers & Posch. Claire has extensive experience advising and litigating on all matters regarding employment law, civil servants’ law and non-discrimination law, including collective and individual dismissals, reorganizations, employee participation, remuneration and equal pay. Claire also litigates on these matters before the national courts and the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights. She has a particular interest in cases relating to non-discrimination and is currently focused on helping her clients navigate the new legal framework introduced by the Pay Transparency Directive. Claire frequently publishes articles on non-discrimination topics, most recently she published articles on the topics of menopause and equal pay for men and women.
SESSION COORDINATOR 2
Christoph Raab
Binder Groesswang
Vienna, Austria
Christoph Raab is a counsel in the competition team of the leading Austrian full-service law firm Binder Groesswang. He advises national and international clients on all aspects of Austrian and EU competition law. His main areas of expertise include strategic advice on merger control, competition proceedings before national competition authorities and the European Commission, antitrust damages claims, and antitrust compliance advice. In addition, he has extensive experience in the strategic coordination of partner law firms and economic experts in complex, cross-border mandates. Christoph has been with Binder Grösswang since 2022. In December 2021, he passed the Austrian bar exam. Previously, he gathered experience with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher in Brussels, with Wolf Theiss Attorneys at Law and as a judicial clerk at the Higher Regional Court of Vienna. Christoph studied law at the University of Vienna (Mag. iur., 2016) and obtained a postgraduate degree from King’s College London (LL.M., 2018). In the Legal 500 EMEA Guide for 2026, he is ranked as “Leading Associate” for EU & Competition in Austria.
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