Irene Picciano

She is recognized amongst leading Italian EU and Competition lawyers. She is in fact ranked as a “Leading partner” by The Legal 500 EMEA 2025. She has been for six year Non-Governmental Advisor (NGA) to the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition within the International Competition Network (ICN).

In the area of competition and European law, Irene has accrued more than twenty-five years of experience assisting multinational companies active in many industry sectors in cartel and abuse of dominance cases before national and EU authorities and courts, unfair commercial practice proceedings, follow on and stand alone actions. She also deals with merger and acquisition assessments and notifications, assistance with internal audits and investigations (including “dawn-raids”), antitrust compliance programs as well as in negotiation and self-assessment of horizontal and vertical agreements under the relevant EU Block Exemption Regulations, including selective distribution and exclusive agreements.

She has overseen numerous proceedings for preliminary ruling before the Court of Justice of the European Union on the subject of fundamental freedoms under the EU Treaty and worked on state aid complaints and structural fund issues.

Irene has also accrued extensive experience on specific aspects of compliance, not only on antitrust matters but also on complex product and trade compliance issues, such as the release for free circulation and related customs aspects, marketing authorizations, export control, dual use, antidumping procedures, labelling, EC marking and related policies.

She has gained experience in many industries, particularly in the Fashion/Luxury, Life Sciences-Healthcare, Automotive, Food & Beverage, Consumer Goods, Telecom and Digital Markets industries.

Irene graduated in law from the Università degli Studi di Salerno in 1994, and was subsequently awarded a Master’s Degree in European Union Law, Economics and Policies from the Fondazione Collegio Europeo di Parma.

Prior to joining Portolano Cavallo, she was a partner at De Berti Jacchia from 2005 and head of its Brussels office, where she was located from 1999 to 2001.

She has authored more than 150 legal and academic publications in EU and competition law (published, amongst others, in “Rivista di diritto comunitario e degli scambi internazionali”, “Giustizia Civile”, “Le Società” e “I Contratti” IPSOA, Manuale di diritto Antitrust,  Giuffrè Francis Lefebvre, Concurrences), She speaks regularly at international antitrust conferences as well as at seminars and specialist undergraduate and post-graduate university courses on the areas of her expertise.

Irene is a member of the Union des Avocats Européennes, the European Law Institute, the Italian Antitrust Association as well as of the IBA and ABA antitrust section.

Irene has been a Supreme Court attorney since 2012.

Foreign languages: English, French

She is registered with the Milan Bar Association, registration number 2006001152.