Candela Sotes is a Senior Associate in Bird & Bird’s Competition & EU law practice in Madrid. She has extensive knowledge on a wide range of competition law issues and experience in advising national and international companies. She has great problem-solving skills and the ability to adapt to individual clients’ needs. Her practice covers all aspects of EU and Spanish competition law, including antitrust investigations, merger control analysis, state aids, unfair commercial practices, damages actions, compliance and regulatory affairs. She has gained extensive expertise assisting clients in antitrust (ie cartel and abuse of dominance cases) and merger control proceedings before the Spanish Competition Authority (’CNMC’) and the European Commission. In particular, she has been involved in complex multi-jurisdictional merger control filings and she regularly advises clients on the implementation of antitrust compliance programmes. She has provided legal advice to leading Spanish and international companies across a broad range of industries, including automotive, telecom, retail & consumer, life sciences & healthcare. She has contributed to several publications on competition and wider EU law matters – including ’Getting the Deal Through’ and ’Tirant lo Blanch’ and collaborated with prestigious universities such as Carlos III University and IE University. Before joining Bird & Bird, she worked as an associate in the competition & EU law department of a major Spanish law firm. She is a native Spanish speaker and fluent in English and Italian.