María Luisa Tierno Centella

María Luisa Tierno Centella is Deputy Head of Unit G2 in the Cartels Directorate within DG Competition. Regular speaker on competition matters, she is the author of many specialized articles and chapters in manuals and magazines. As case manager, she leads teams of officials through the different phases of investigation and enforcement, including some on-going major financial investigations. She played leading role in the introduction of the settlement procedure for EU cartel cases and then managed the first case that went through all phases of the settlement procedure, as well as the first "hybrid" case, leading to the prohibition and sanctioning of the longest cartel ever proven by the European Commission. She took part in the last review of the EU Leniency Notice and the discussions leading to the ECN Model Leniency Programme as well as in the introduction of the EU damages package. She has previously worked within DG Competition to ensure consistency review of, a.o., draft Decisions and Statements of Objections in the field of antitrust and mergers. She co-drafted the existing Spanish public guidelines on leniency. As official of the Dutch Competition Authority (NMa, Nov. 1997-June 2001), she investigated and handled antitrust cases and represented The Netherlands in Brussels on a regular basis in discussions concerning all antitrust areas (vertical restraints, horizontal co-operation between competitors, Council Regulation 1/2003 and modernisation package, de minimis notice, etc). She previously worked (1992-1997) as Associate Lawyer in the Brussels office of Gómez-Acebo & Pombo, assisting companies in several fields of law including antitrust, State aid and internal market rules and negotiation of contracts. She drafted the Latvian basic bills on State aid as expert in the PHARE accession program for Latvia, and coordinated the first part of the PHARE program for the approximation of the legislation of Slovakia to that of the EC. She holds a Law Degree by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and a Master degree on European law by the Université Libre de Bruxelles.