Maria Hajiyerou is a senior foreign attorney and an experienced antitrust and competition lawyer, with extensive experience handling international clients in cross-border merger reviews and KFTC investigations. 

Her vast portfolio of cross-border merger review work before the KFTC includes contentious and non-contentious transactions involving acquisitions related to software, food, chemical and healthcare companies. 

In addition to merger control matters, Ms. Hajiyerou also has extensive experience in handling other types of KFTC investigations, including international cartel cases and other types of abusive practices under Korea’s Fair Trade Law, including abuse of market dominance cases and unfair trade practices. 

Ms. Hajiyerou successfully led a team that overturned a 2017 KFTC decision against a US-based advanced materials company for unfairly restricting the sale of its products through certain distribution channels. This milestone decision marked the first case where the Korean Supreme Court concluded that non-pricing vertical restraint is legal under the Korean competition law. 

Most recently, Ms. Hajiyerou was a key member of the defense team involved in a large financial institution that successfully overturned a finding of bid rigging on appeal before the Seoul High Court. 

She has also led the team for a large financial institution, successfully providing assistance on closing KFTC’s investigation on allegations of collusion for lack of extraterritorial jurisdiction under Korea’s Fair Trade Law.