Marie de Drouas

Practice Areas

Marie de Drouas advises and represents clients in major antitrust investigations and proceedings before the European Commission and the French Competition Authority. She also has strong experience in high-profile follow-on damages actions, acting before the French Commercial Courts, the Paris Court of Appeal, and the French Supreme Court.

In addition, she advises on the full spectrum of competition and regulatory aspects of complex domestic and cross-border matters, including merger control proceedings before the European Commission and the French Competition Authority.

Marie is also active in matters relating to the EU Foreign Subsidies Regulation (FSR) and foreign direct investment (FDI) screening in France.

She acts for industrial groups, investors, and trade associations across a wide range of sectors, including energy and infrastructure, digital and technology, telecommunications and media, transport, consumer goods, real estate, and agriculture.

Career

She practised within the Antitrust team at Clifford Chance in Paris for ten years, advising on complex EU and French competition matters. She subsequently set up her own practice before co-founding Niddam-Drouas Avocats in 2017.

Professional Memberships

- Board Member, Association des Avocats Pratiquant le Droit de la Concurrence (APDC)

- Board Member, The European Circle for European Competition Damages

Publications

- Affaire Nissan: the CJEU clarifies the rules on limitation periods, Revue Lamy de la concurrence, December 2025.

- Towards the emergence of private actions based on breaches of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), Concurrences, February 2025.

- Private enforcement: costs and judicial estimation of harm, Lextenso – L’Essentiel Droit de la distribution et de la concurrence, April 2023.

- Merger control in the EU: turnover is no longer the sole criterion, Contrats Concurrence Consommation, May 2021.

- The French Supreme Court clarifies the legal regime applicable to breaches of antitrust commitments, Concurrences, September 2018.

- The French Supreme Court applies the CJEU framework in the Endive Cartel case, e-Competitions Bulletin – Concurrences, September 2018.

- Competition law and the pharmaceutical sector under scrutiny, Revue Pharmaceutiques, January 2018.

- Third-party intervention in merger control proceedings before the French Competition Authority, Contrats Concurrence Consommation, October 2016.

- Disclosure obligations of listed companies in antitrust proceedings, Concurrences, May 2016.

- Competition: France – International Joint Ventures, Practical Law, October 2014.