TILPA - International Trade and Investment Law

Of Counsel

Marius Bordalba (TILPA Of Counsel), a Spanish citizen, holds a law degree from the University of Lleida, Spain and a LL.M degree on EC and WTO Law from the Amsterdam School of International Relations, The Netherlands (1997). He has more than 17 years of experience in the field of EU and WTO trade law. He gained his experience working in leading trade law firms from Belgium (Vermulst, Waer & Verhaeghe and Van Bael & Bellis), the WTO Secretariat and various donors in technical assistance and capacity building projects.  He spends his time in the Geneva office, Spain and helping clients in situ.

Marius’ WTO experience covers various areas of trade in goods (among others GATT, the SCM Agreement, the ADA and the Safeguards Agreement), trade defence instruments (he has worked in more than 70 EU investigations), classification, rules of origin, SPS and TBT; WTO institutional matters; accession; dispute settlement; and trade policy reviews. He has extensive experience advising on trade policy and legislation, as well as customs, general regulatory matters and competition. He worked with the private sector, governments and international donors and organisations.

In the area of dispute settlement, he has advised various governments in WTO disputes (India in EC-Bed Linen (DS141); Korea in Korea-Various Measures on Beef (DS161) and in Canada-Autos (DS142); the ACP Group in EC – Bananas (DS27, 2nd recourse to Article 21.5 (Ecuador));Taiwan in EC-IT Products (DS377); and the Dominican Republic, in DR-Safeguard Measures (DS415-418)). He is advising the Government of Ukraine on various ongoing disputes. He carried out research, developed legal arguments and prepared drafts of briefs. He participated in hearings before WTO panels. While serving in the WTO Secretariat, he worked as legal officer in various disputes (Argentina-Poultry Anti-Dumping Duties (DS241), United States-Softwood lumber V (DS264) and EC-Countervailing Measures on DRAM Chips (DS299)). He prepared the cases for the panellists: carried out research, prepared issues papers, participated in hearings with parties and internal discussion sessions with panellists and drafted legal documents. As an expert, he has advised companies and governments on possible disputes regarding trade defence measures, subsidies, TBT, SPS and general GATT-related matters, among others. He has presented various conferences, workshops and trainings on WTO dispute settlement, including one-week long, practical events. He also co-authored an in-depth study of international trade-related dispute settlement for the Government of Peru, and prepared materials to explain dispute settlement to the private sector.

Marius has also worked in trade-related disputes before the EU Court of Justice.