Mélanie Thill-Tayara is partner at Dechert LLP in Paris. She is a competition lawyer based in Paris where she heads the French and European competition law department. She specialises in a variety of sectors including consumer goods, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, chemicals, leisure and luxury goods. Mélanie focuses on various aspects of EU and French competition law. She has acquired a strong reputation as a litigator and has been involved in landmark cases, for example in the field of essential facilities, dominance abuses in the pharma sector and information exchange systems. Melanie has represented major French and international companies in merger notifications before French and EU competition authorities, as well as in multi-jurisdictional filings. Mélanie is a member of the International Bar Association, the Association Française de l’Etude de la Concurrence and the Studienvereinigung Kartellrecht. She is a member of the board and executive committee of the Association des Avocats Pratiquant le Droit de la Concurrence (APDC). Mélanie regularly contributes to legal reviews as well as the legal pages of the financial and economic press. She is also a regular speaker at various competition law or sector-specialised conferences. Before joining Dechert, Mélanie spent 20 years as partner of another leading international law firm. Prior to that she worked for the European Commission, at the Directorate General for Competition for three years, during which she acted in historic cases such as the cement cartels. Mélanie holds a DEA (post-graduate degree) in business law and private international law from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, a Maîtrise (master’s degree) in International and European law, a Diploma from the Centre Universitaire d’Etudes Communautaires and a Diploma of Political Sciences from the University of Munich. She was admitted to the Paris Bar in 1987.