José is a Partner and Co-head of Bird & Bird LLP Competition and EU Group.
José Rivas joined Bird & Bird in 2008. His practice covers all aspects of EU and competition law, including in particular: Articles 101 and 102; State aid and merger control.
José has extensive experience in representing leading U.S., Japanese and European clients across a broad range of industries, including: aviation; media; telecommunications; energy and biotechnology.
José has extensive litigation experience before the European Courts in Luxembourg - having represented clients in competition, trade and institutional EU law in more than 75 cases, including 3 before the "Grand Chamber" of the Court of Justice. He represented clients under investigation, obtained phase I and phase II merger control clearance by the European Commission and national competition authorities; and filed complaints with such authorities as well as obtained commitments, settlements and Article 7 decisions. He also regularly organises anti-trust audits to help clients to identify any current or potential infringements of competition law, and has devised compliance programmes to help prevent future infringements.
Prior to joining Bird & Bird, José was Head of a leading International Firm’s Brussels office and Co-Head of its European Competition group.
- "Impressed clients consider José Rivas to be an 'extremely thoughtful lawyer and adviser'" (Chambers Global, 2015);
- José Rivas "grasps problems in a very efficient and quick manner, driving things in-house and following up in an intelligent way" (Chambers Global, 2017);
- "We are very pleased that the Court has confirmed PRS's long standing position that it did not participate in any concerted practice. We received an excellent service from Bird & Bird and our position was argued tirelessly by José and his team throughout the proceedings" (Jonathan Aitken, Head of Competition & International Affairs, PRS for Music, 2013).
José is editor of the World Competition, Law and Economics Journal (Kluwer ) and has written extensively on competition law in both English and Spanish. He is a visiting Professor in EU Competition Policy at the College of Europe, Natolin Campus, and is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars. He is also a member of the Working Groups on Competition and State Aids Law of the European Confederation of Business Associations (BUSINESS EUROPE).
A Spanish abogado since 1986, José studied law at the Universities of Zaragoza and Exeter. He also holds a Master’s degree in EU law from the College of Europe in Bruges.
José speaks Spanish, English and French.