Cambridge Forum on European Collective Redress

Maria José Azar-Baud is an Associate Professor at Paris-Saclay University and an internationally recognised expert in collective redress. A dual-qualified lawyer at the Paris and Buenos Aires Bars, she advises European institutions, NGOs, litigation funders and claims administrators on complex mass litigation and comparative procedural frameworks.

In 2017, she founded the Observatory of Group Actions and other forms of Collective Redress, an international platform dedicated to the dissemination and analysis of collective litigation mechanisms. She has held prominent governance roles, including as President of Ius Omnibus (Portugal), a designated Qualified Entity under EU law, and currently serves as Board Director of the Diesel Emissions Justice Foundation (Netherlands).

Holding a double PhD from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and the University of Buenos Aires, she is the author of over 150 publications in French, English and Spanish on class actions, representative actions, and group litigation across multiple substantive fields. She actively contributes to European Commission projects relating to the Representative Actions Directive (namely as its Senior Legal Advisor) and has been heard by national and international institutions, including the French Parliament and Senate.

She regularly provides advanced training to judges, lawyers, and qualified entities at both national and European levels.

A dual-qualified Spanish and English lawyer, and a Doctor in Law, Paul is an internationally reputed competition litigation specialist, the first to be recognized as such in Spain (GCR 2017, Lexology 2022-2025). He was lead counsel on the first successful competition damages case before the Spanish Commercial Courts in 2005, has litigated mass competition claims in various jurisdictions around the EU (including, Spain, England, France and Italy) and directed the legal team which prepared the EU Pass-on Study (2016). He is currently legal director of one of the main claimant groups in the Spanish milk cartel case and lead counsel on the first pay-for-delay claim in Spain. He was also lead counsel for Daimler in the Spanish trucks cartel litigation in (2017-2020).

Paul was a partner at Cuatrecasas for 12 years where, in 2008, he created the firm’s Private Enforcement practice. He left Cuatrecasas to form boutique firm Hitchings & Co. in 2020 and, five years later, has launched its successor with ex Commercial Court magistrate, Blas González. Hitchings & Gonzalez is specialized in EU & Competition Litigation and collective actions.

Paul is also director of the Madrid Competition Litigation Seminar, now in its 6th edition.

Rosie Ioannou is a Director at Fortress Investment Group. In this role she provides bespoke funding solutions for high value commercial litigation and portfolio financing solutions for law firms and their clients. Rosie has experience both in private practice and as funder in a wide range of disputes both in the UK and internationally. She has particular expertise in funding large complex matters, including group claims and competition related disputes. A solicitor of the Courts of England and Wales, before joining Fortress, Rosie worked at Vannin Capital. Prior to that she worked in the litigation department at Allen & Overy in London, where she trained and qualified.