Gianni de Stefano is a policy officer at the European Commission in the DG COMP. Prior he was the global director competition law at AkzoNobel after being for over a decade an antitrust lawyer in international leading law firms. Previously, he worked as a counsel in the antitrust, competition and economic regulation practice at Hogan Lovells in Brussels, and advised companies on every major area of antitrust and competition law, including cartel investigations, complex multi-jurisdictional mergers and joint ventures, abuse of dominance and restrictive practices cases. Gianni De Stefano holds degrees from the University of Bologna (law school), La Sorbonne in Paris (exchange program), College of Europe in Belgium (master of European Legal Studies) and New York (LL.M.), and is a qualified lawyer in Italy, Belgium and New York.