Rainer Becker

Rainer Becker heads the unit in DG Competition responsible for antitrust enforcement in the European Competition Network, for private enforcement and for cooperation with national courts. He has extensive competition law experience, both from public and private practice.

Prior to his current position, he was in charge of the Commission’s antitrust enforcement in the area of pharmaceuticals and health, which included cases on pay-for-delay, excessive pricing, and exclusionary abuses of dominance. Before that, Rainer led the unit in charge of coordinating the Commission’s antitrust and cartel cases and of developing competition policy in this area. He also served in different other positions within DG Competition, working in particular on the EU’s legislative initiative on private damages actions, and in operational units of the authority handling antitrust and merger matters in manufacturing and consumer goods industries. Before joining the Commission in 2004, he was a lawyer of the Brussels and Cologne bars and a senior associate in an international law firm. He advised clients across a range of industries on European and German merger control, antitrust, and cross-border litigation matters. Rainer is a visiting professor at Heidelberg University and has published and spoken widely on issues of competition policy, general EU law and comparative law, and lectures at Heidelberg University. Born in 1969, he studied Law, and Spanish & French literature at German, Spanish and Canadian universities in Germany, Spain and Canada and holds Ph.D. (Trier), LL.M. (McGill), and Ass./Ref. iur. (Rh.-Pfalz) degrees in law. He is fluent in German, English, French, and Spanish.