We work closely with leading experts from other disciplines at national and international level to respond to the specific characteristics and needs of each client and project.
Together, we find innovative and effective solutions to the most complex problems.
Paul is passionate about the law. As a result of his particular personal and professional journey, that passion has developed along fascinating contours marked by the relationship between different disciplines: EU substantive law and national procedural law, private international law, comparative procedural and tort law, economics and the law. In these areas he has had the privilege to make a real contribution to the development of the law, both by means of participation as counsel on leading cases, and by means of publications, conferences or judicial training.
Indeed, Paul´s passion for his work has been accompanied by a continuing desire to learn and to share that learning with others. Paul completed a part-time PhD on the impact of EU law on national procedure in antitrust damages litigation in 2023, receiving an Extraordinary Prize from the Faculty of Law of the Madrid Complutense University, work which was updated and published in Spanish by Tirant lo Blanch as a monograph in 2024. Paul is also the creator and director of the Madrid Competition Litigation Seminar, internationally-renowned for uniquely bringing together stakeholders from all areas of practice for open debate, and has imparted several training sessions to Spanish and foreign judges on the private enforcement of competition law.
A graduate of Cambridge University (Trinity Hall) and the College of Europe, Paul qualified as an English solicitor at international law firm, Norton Rose, in 1995 and specialized in EU competition law and telecommunications in the firm’s Brussels office, where he worked on the first essential facilities cases in the EU, as well as high profile cases related to liberalization in the telecoms and air transport sectors.
Paul moved to Spain in 1998 to be with his wife, Ana, and focused his initial years on matters relating to the liberalization of the Spanish telecoms sector. He joined the litigation department of Iberian firm, Cuatrecasas, in 2002, where he not only developed the TMT business acting on behalf of clients like T-Online, Xfera or Microsoft but created the first antitrust private enforcement practice in Spain.
The private enforcement journey began with the first successful competition damages case brought by him before the Spanish Commercial Courts on behalf of Irish directory enquiry provider, Conduit, against Telefónica. Paul has gone on to litigate mass competition claims in various jurisdictions around the EU (including, as well as Spain, England, France and Italy). Cases have related inter alia to the Marine Hose Cartel, the Spanish Fruit Packaging Cartel, the UK Multilateral Interchange Litigation or the UK and French litigation in relation to the Carbon Brushes Cartel. His clients have included local agriculture cooperatives and international businesses of the likes of Inditex, Pemex or Deutsche Bahn.
In 2016, Paul directed the legal team which prepared the EU Pass-on Study with RBB Economics for the European Commission, which formed the basis for the EU’s practical guidelines to national judges on this complex aspect of many antitrust damages cases. On the defence side, Paul led the defence of Daimler in the Trucks litigation in Spain from 2017 until 2020 and piloted the first successful defence of a cartel damages claim in Spain on the merits, obtaining the full dismissal of claims arising out of the Construction Insurance Cartel by the Madrid Court of Appeal in 2022. Paul is currently representing farmers in their claims arising out of the Spanish milk cartel and is leading the first pay for delay claims before the Spanish courts on behalf of a regional health authority. He is the only Spanish lawyer to have been recommended specifically for private enforcement in Spain (since 2017, by GCR and Who’s Who Legal).
Paul launched his own boutique firm, Hitchings & Co., in late 2020 offering specialized services in the areas of EU, Regulatory and Competition Law and related complex litigation and created Hitchings & Gonzalez in 2025 with Blas González to take this practice to a new level, so continuing the wonderful journey commenced all those years ago.
Thought Leader – Competition
Education and training
Bachelor of Arts (2:1), Derecho, Trinity Hall, Universidad de Cambridge, Reino Unido (1991)
Recommendations
Who’s Who Legal / Lexology, Competencia (Abogado destacado en Europa) (desde 2022)
Global Competition Review, Private Enforcement of Competition Law (2017-2019)
“40 under 40 Lawyers”, Iberian Lawyer (2007)
Chambers Global, Chambers & Legal 500, Telecomunicaciones (desde 1999)
Positions
Publications
La influencia del Derecho Europeo en los procesos de daños por infracción del Derecho de la competencia (Tirant lo Blanch, 2024)
Mock Trial: Quantification of harm in an exclusionary abuse of dominance case, en Competencia, Compensación de Daños y Mercados Digitales, Dir. Juan Ignacio Ruiz Peris (Tirant lo Blanch, 2022), pp. 294-327
Daños Antitrust: ¿Cómo Conseguir una Mayor Coherencia y Eficacia en la Resolución de las Reclamaciones en Masa? Comentario a raíz de las Sentencias del TJUE en Volvo I y Sumal (Caso Camiones), Anuario de Derecho de la Competencia 2022 (Civitas), Cap. 6
RH v AB Volvo: a call for centralized and specialized courts in the midst of jurisdictional dispersion, Mass Claims Journal, vol. 2, diciembre 2021
La prueba pericial económica en los procedimientos de reclamaciones de daños: transparencia, salas de datos y replicación, Almacén de Derecho, 12 mayo 2021
Collective or Class Actions and Claims Aggregation in Spain y Spain Q&A, capítulos en Private Litigation Guide, GCR Insight, Ed. N. Heaton y B. Holt, octubre 2019
Reformas procesales introducidas en la LEC por el Real Decreto de la Directiva de daños derivados de infracciones del Derecho de la Competencia, con Luis Loras, Economist & Jurist, julio 2017
A legal approach to assessing evidence of pass-on, con James Hain-Cole, Global Competition Litigation Review, 3 / 2017
The EU Pass-on Study, Global Private Litigation Bulletin, ABA Antitrust Section, diciembre 2016
Considerations concerning the implementation of the EU competition law damages directive in Spain, con Miguel Ángel Malo y Luis Loras, Concurrences, 2 / 2015
Territorial jurisdiction in European cross-border cartel damages claims – consolidation before one court, International Civil Redress Bulletin, ABA Antitrust Section, con Martijn van Maanen, Meike von Levetzow y Kathrin Westermann, marzo 2015
Private Enforcement in Spain, Global Competition Litigation Review, 1 / 2010
The Conduit Case, en Derecho de la Competencia Europea y Español, Curso de Iniciación Volumen VII, Ed. Dykinson, a cargo de L. Ortiz Blanco y J. Entrena Rovers, 2007
Conferences
Roundtable on Private Enforcement, APDC Annual Conference, París, abril 2025
Novedades en la aplicación privada del Derecho de la competencia, AEDC Annual Conference, noviembre 2024
Cuestiones prácticas sobre la prueba en los procesos de defensa de la competencia, Congreso Interno de Jueces de lo Mercantil, Burgos, octubre 2024
La opinión de Kokott en Heureka, mesa moderada con Assimakis Komninos, AEDC, octubre 2023
La prueba pericial en la cuantificación del daño: una visión procesal y Passing-on (the legal view), DEFCOMCOURT 6, Universitat de València, Facultat de Dret, junio 2023
Pass-on: ¿dónde está el daño?, ABA Global Private Litigation Conference, Copenhague, junio 2023
El impacto de la divulgación en el procedimiento civil, DEFCOMCOURT 6, Universidad de Valencia, marzo 2023
La relación entre el procedimiento administrativo y el procedimiento civil, DEFCOMCOURT 6, Universidad de Valencia, octubre 2022
Review of national developments across 6 key jurisdictions: Spain, Informe Private Enforcement Conference, Bruselas, 31 marzo 2022
Litigating around Europe: what you need to know, GCR 12th Annual Competition Litigation Conference, Online, noviembre 2020
La ordenación de los litigios en masa en casos de derecho de la competencia: ¿hacia la “acumulación flexible” o la “gestión de casos”?, Moderador, Fundación FIDE, online, octubre 2020
Expert evidence in competition litigation, CDR Autumn Competition Litigation Symposium 2019, Londres, noviembre 2019
Thinking Critically About Pass-On and Contribution, ABA Global Private Litigation Conference, Berlín, junio 2019
La litigación de daños por infracciones de derecho antitrust en Europa: consideraciones para el caso de Camiones en España, Congreso sobre el Cártel de Camiones, ThomsonReuters, Madrid, junio 2019
Acceso a fuentes de prueba, Foro Procesal, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, octubre 2018
El papel de las autoridades de competencia en las reclamaciones de daños, XI Jornadas Nacionales de la Competencia, Junta de Andalucía y CNMC, Málaga, mayo 2018
The EU Damages Directive Updated, CDR Winter Competition Litigation Symposium 2018, Londres, febrero 2018
Controversial issues in antitrust civil liability – EU perspective y Panel de Expertos, Seminario Internacional de Derecho de la Competencia IBRAC, Campos do Jordão, Brasil, octubre 2017
Economic evidence in competition law and the future of the more economic approach, organizado por UCL (Centre for Law, Economics & Society) y la Universidad de Groningen (Facultad de Derecho), Ámsterdam, mayo 2017
The EU Damages Directive Updated, CDR Spring Competition Litigation Symposium 2017, Londres, febrero 2017
How will Brexit and the Damages Directive affect forum shopping?, GCR 8th Annual Competition Litigation Conference, Londres, octubre 2016
Private Enforcement – the cross-border perspective, seminario organizado por Chiomenti Studio Legale, Milán, junio 2016
Private Enforcement in the UK, Seminario organizado por Trans Europe Experts in Law y la Universidad de París 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, París, abril 2015
Private Enforcement in the EU, seminario organizado por Accura, despacho de abogados, Copenhague, octubre 2014
The creation of Hitchings & González is the culmination of Blas’s ongoing pursuit of excellence in the world of commercial law and complex litigation. It all began in 1986, when he started his studies at the University of Granada, embarking on a process of lifelong learning that culminated in 1994 when he passed the competitive examinations to enter the Spanish judiciary. He was a young judge, dedicated since the age of 27 to the privilege of practising civil and criminal law. He worked in his home city, and then moved with his wife, Belén, to another favourite location, Jerez and the province of Cádiz, where their three children grew up happily.
Everything pointed to a comfortable and profitable career in the courts. However, his innate aversion to settling down and curtailing his professional development led him, in 2004, to sit and pass a second competitive examination to become a member of the first class of specialists in commercial matters of the General Council of the Judiciary in Spain. Armed with this highly-regarded specialization, he worked in what was then the leading Spanish court in commercial matters: Section 15 of the Provincial Appeal Court of Barcelona, where he participated directly in the creation of the first and most relevant case law at the time in matters such as bankruptcy law, industrial property and competition law.
Years later, following hundreds of commercial rulings, national and international conferences and dozens of publications, Blas moved to the Commercial Court of Granada and it was there, back in his hometown, that he received the proposal to move into private practice as a partner at Cuatrecasas. He accepted in January 2012, and since then he has lived in Madrid, the city that, like so many others, welcomed and nurtured his family and has enabled them to prosper and grow. After four years at a national law firm of that calibre, participating in major national cases involving insolvency law, corporate litigation, and intellectual and industrial property, in 2015 he decided to take the next step: to start his own boutique firm, BGA. In his tailor-made firm, surrounded by exactly the people he wanted to surround himself with, he was able to delve deeper into two particularly attractive areas: litigation funding (he is involved in some of the world’s largest funded international litigation cases) and the private application of competition law, civil antitrust actions. He is now a well-known figure in both sectors, involved in some of the most important national litigation cases in this field, which is constantly evolving in Spain, and recognised by the leading international business law directories.
The professional re-encounter with Paul Hitchings, with whom he collaborated on competition matters during their time together at their previous firm, was immediately recognised as the moment to take the next step: to spin off those complex litigation practices from his boutique firm and create, together with Paul, the first Spanish boutique for two exciting sectors, the private application of competition law and new class actions. The journey continues!
David Martín joined Hitchings & Co in November 2024, coming from the Competition and EU Law department at Uría Menéndez.
He completed a Master’s Degree in Access to the Legal Profession and a Law Degree at the Autonomous University of Madrid (Second Prize Extraordinary Award). He is also an Expert in Competition Law from the Carlos III University of Madrid.
He has focused his practice on advising and litigating in multiple areas of European economic law, with a focus on competition law. In particular, he has participated in complex sanctioning and economic concentration proceedings before the European Commission and the National Commission for Markets and Competition. He has also advised on the compatibility of contracts and distribution schemes with competition law.
In addition, he has participated in free competition litigation, both public (contentious-administrative) and private (civil). In this context, he has appeared before the Spanish courts, the EU courts and the European Court of Human Rights.
Guillermo Schumann holds a PhD in Law with honours and is a professor of Procedural Law at the Complutense University of Madrid. He collaborates with the firm as an academic consultant under a transfer agreement signed through the UCM’s Knowledge Transfer Office.
He is a member of the Association of Professors of Procedural Law of Spanish Universities and the International Association of Procedural Law, from which he received the Mauro Cappelletti Award.
He is the author of two monographs: ‘The right to effective judicial protection and freedom of contract: procedural contracts’ (Marcial Pons, 2022) and ‘Confidential information and civil proceedings: procedural immunities in matters of evidence’ (Atelier, 2025); as well as several book chapters and articles published in scientific journals.
His international research experience includes research stays at the Max Planck Institute for Procedural Law in Luxembourg, the University of Heidelberg and the Max Planck Institute for Private Law in Hamburg. He is also Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Procedural Law.
Guillermo is a highly qualified support for the firm’s complex litigation. He is an asset who helps us maintain levels of excellence, innovation and continuous learning that few boutique law firms can afford.
An updated list of his most recent publications can be found here:
With over 15 years of experience as an Office Manager and Administrative Secretary, Claudia is an expert in comprehensive office management and senior management support. Her passion for organisation and service excellence has enabled her to build a solid track record in customer service, supplier management and administrative control.
A graduate of the University of Salvador (Buenos Aires, Argentina) with a degree in Tourism, she worked for years in the sector before honing her skills in various areas of operational management and management support.
