Profile details
About Dr. Maria Dreher-Lorjé
Maria is dual-located in the firm’s Vienna and Brussels offices and heads our Austrian antitrust practice. She specialises in Austrian and European merger control, cartel investigations and EU litigation, as well as antitrust compliance.
She also acts before national and European competition authorities in relation to market-dominance proceedings and State aid law.
Maria has assisted a number of clients from various industries following dawn raids by the European Commission and Austrian competition authority, with a particular focus on settlement proceedings. She offers expert advice on compliance audits in the context of both internal and regulatory investigations.
While Maria’s clients cover a range of industry sectors, she has in-depth knowledge of various basic industries, the pharma/life sciences sector and financial services. She has also advised international clients from the manufacturing and retail sectors on antitrust issues around their digital transformation.
Maria speaks English, German and French.
Recent work
- Infineon in its successful appeal before the European Court of Justice in relation to the smart card chips investigation, leading to a significant fine reduction.
- London Stock Exchange Group on its $27bn transformational acquisition of Refinitiv, which included reviews by 21 merger control authorities as well as foreign investment screening in a number of jurisdictions.
- Clariant on the European Commission’s investigation into the ethylene market and subsequent proceedings before the EU’s General Court.
- Johnson & Johnson on the European Commission’s in-depth investigation of its proposed acquisition of TachoSil from Takeda Pharmaceutical Company.
- Comcast Corporation on the merger control, foreign investment and public interest aspects of its multi-billion bid for Sky plc.
- Hutchison Drei Austria on its acquisition of Orange, a 4-to-3 consolidation in the Austrian telecommunications market, including merger control proceedings before the European Commission and a mix of structural and behavioural remedies; and on the acquisition of Tele2 Österreich, the Austrian subsidiary of the Swedish telecommunications group Tele2.
- Clients from various industries, such as public transport, aviation, banking and renewables, on EU State aid, including proceedings before the European Commission and appeal proceedings before the General Court of Justice.
Qualifications
Education
- University of Vienna, Austria (law; doctorate, with a thesis on interfaces between cartel investigations and constitutional law guarantees)
Professional qualifications
- Rechtsanwältin (attorney-at-law), Austria