Cristiana Vieira Bento

Cristiana Vieira Bento is an Associate in the Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group of the Lisbon Corporate Department.

She specialises in European Law and Competition Law, advising on antitrust matters, such as restrictive practices and abuse of dominant position, on merger control, on state aid as well as on sectorial regulatory matters.

Cristiana has been working on domestic matters and furthermore in multinational teams on cross-border matters. She has assisted domestic and international clients, institutional clients, such as associations of companies and public entities, and corporate clients, that operate in the financial, energy, environmental, telecommunications, infrastructure, services, transportation, distribution and retail markets.

In addition to her advisory work she has also assisted clients in administrative procedures such as merger control notification procedures, before the Portuguese Competition Authority and the European Commission and represented clients in antitrust enforcement procedures before the Portuguese Competition Authority and the Portuguese Competition Court.

Cristiana started her legal career in 2018 as Trainee-lawyer at the local law firm Morais Leitão, Galvão Teles, Soares da Silva & Advogados, specialising in European Law & Competition Law.

After that she worked as Associate at the local law firm of the former Court of Justice of the EU Judge, José Luís da Cruz Vilaça, assisting the renowned European competition law judge as part of his team in preparing expert opinions on EU Law & Competition Law.

She then joined Linklaters Lisbon in 2022 as Associate in the Antitrust & Foreign Investment Group of its Corporate Department.

Cristiana holds a Law Degree of the Faculty of Law of the Nova University of Lisbon (2017). She furthermore holds an LLM in European Law of the Leiden Law School of the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, submitting a thesis entitled: “International Investment Arbitration and the EU Principle of Autonomy after Achmea: Is CETA’s Investment Court System compatible with EU Law?”

During her university studies Cristiana was very active in extracurricular activities. In addition to her involvement in AIESEC, she was a participant in International Law and EU Law moot courts of the Faculty of Law of the Nova University of Lisbon, in international moot courts such as the Telders International Law Moot Court Competition and the Europa Moot Court, organised by the MOHA Reseach Center, and she participated in the Harvard National Model United Nations. Later on, she acted as jury member in the EU Law moot court organised by the Faculty of Law of the Nova University of Lisbon.

Furthermore, Cristiana was a summer trainee for the Secretary of State of the Sea, in the areas of International Public Law & Administrative Law, and at the National Centre for Information and Arbitration of Consumer Conflicts, in the areas of Consumer Law, Civil Law, Mediation and Arbitration and Dispute Resolution.

She is a fully qualified Member of the Portuguese Bar Association since 2021.

Cristiana speaks Portuguese and English.