DLA Piper hires top EC trade negotiator

DLA Piper has strengthened its EU, competition and trade practice following the hire of the European Commission’s top trade negotiator.

Miriam Gonzalez joins DLA Piper’s London office as a senior consultant.

DLA Piper’s EU competition and trade team head Mike Pullen said: "[Gonzalez] will be a major asset in gaining high-level WTO trade law and policy and competition law work from a number of existing and potential multi-national clients.”

A qualified Spanish lawyer, Gonzales was the EC’s leading trade negotiator at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). She previously served as a senior adviser in the cabinet of the EU’s former external relations commissioner Chris Patten, and had responsibility for EU trade relations with the US and Middle East while serving in the cabinet of current external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

She specialised in telecoms negotiations at the WTO, and led the EU negotiating team for energy, postal, construction and information services, and has previously worked as a competition and regulatory lawyer for BT in Brussels.