CRISTOFORO OSTI

He has been ranked by Chambers Europe in the top tier of competition law in Italy for several years. He received the award for Best Antitrust Lawyer of the Year from the two leading Italian specialised publications (Top Legal, 2011; Legal Community, 2017, 2021). Cristoforo focuses on national and EU competition law (Antitrust). He assists many leading Italian and multinational companies in high-profile matters before the Italian Antitrust Authority and the European Commission. He conducts significant litigation before Italian civil and administrative courts and before the Court of Justice of the European Union on issues relating to competition law, unfair commercial practices and abuse of economic dependence. He has experience in the field of State aid and is regularly involved in the development and management of antitrust compliance and audit programmes.
He is Professor of Commercial Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Salento in Lecce; in 2015 he was Unicredit Visiting Professor for European Legal Studies at the Columbia School of Law in New York, where he held a course on Global Antitrust Law and a seminar on competition law theories. He is the author of a textbook (‘Diritto della Concorrenza’, Il Mulino), several monographs, including ‘Nuovi Obblighi a Contrarre’ (Il Mulino), the chapter ‘Contratto e Concorrenza’ in ‘Trattato del Contratto’ edited by Enzo Roppo (2nd ed, Giuffrè, 2022),and various articles such as recently ‘The merits of “on the merits”: survey on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice’, Mercato, Concorrenza e Regole, 2025; ‘Adversus dogmaticos: post-pandettistica alla prova del diritto della concorrenza, Mercato Concorrenza e Regole’, 2022; ‘Il Digital Markets Acts tra Regolazione e Concorrenza’, in AA.VV., ‘Towards European legislation on digital markets and services’; 2021, ‘Market Power and Market Definition in the Digital Economy’, in AA.VV., ‘Competition law enforcement in digital markets’, 2021.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Cristoforo joined the firm in 2012 and is currently Senior Of Counsel. From 2012 to 2024 he was a partner and head of the firm's Competition Law department. From 1999 to 2012 he was a partner at Clifford Chance LLP, where he was head of the Competition Law and Regulation department for the Italian offices. From 1995 he held the same position at a major Italian law firm.

ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

Full professor of Commercial Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Salento, Lecce; former contract professor of Competition Law at the Faculty of Economics of the LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome.

LANGUAGES