Miriam Gonzalez Durantez

This article is part of the Lobbying Portal, a sunlight project from Spinwatch.

Miriam Gonzalez Durantez is a lawyer. She was a partner at international law and lobbying firm DLA Piper until October 2011 before taking up the role of head of EU trade and government affairs at the US legal firm Dechert.

She is married to the UK Coalition's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. In 2011 Clegg 'recused' himself from involvement in the government's development of a statutory register for the UK's £2 billion a year lobbying industry, which he had previously championed. Responsibility was handed to a junior minister, Mark Harper. According to the Daily Mail,

A spokesman for Mr Clegg said: ‘The Deputy Prime Minister felt it was important there should not be any possibility of the perception of any conflict of interest with the work of his wife and recused himself from leading on the issue.’

Biography

From DLA Piper's website (Sept 2011)

Miriam is the Head of Trade and Government Relations and is based in the London office. Her main areas of expertise are international and EU trade law and policy.

Prior to joining DLA Piper, Miriam served, for seven years, as a senior member of the cabinet for EU External Relations Commissioners Chris Patten and Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Her main responsibility was advising on EU relations with the US, the Middle East, Mediterranean countries and Latin America. Miriam had a leading role in the policy strategy for EU market access and regulatory negotiations with those countries. She was also directly responsible for the Commissioners' contributions to EU trade and competition policy.

In her previous career as EU negotiator at the WTO, working for Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, Miriam led the EU team in the WTO negotiations on telecommunications as well as the services negotiations for EU bilateral and WTO accession agreements. She also managed and led the EU negotiating team for energy, postal, construction and information society services.

Miriam is a qualified Spanish Lawyer - she studied law at the University of Valladolid (Spain) and she has a Masters degree from the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium). She is also Senior Associate Member of St Anthony's College, Oxford.

Publications, Contact, Resources and Notes

Publications

• Co-author of the book 'Regulatory Aspects of the WTO Telecoms Agreements', Cameron May, 2003. She has written articles on EU trade issues. These include 'Telecommunications in GATS 2000' in International Trade Law and Regulation, December 1999, 'The WTO Negotiations on Basic Telecoms,' August 1997 and 'Adapting Services Strategies to Deregulation' in Telecommunications International Vol.1, No. 5, May 1997.

Contact

Address: 3 Noble Street

London EC2V 7EE

United Kingdom

Phone:T: +44(0)20 7796 6986

Fax +44 (0)7738 295501

Email:miriam.gonzalez@dlapiper.com

Website:http://www.dlapiper.com/miriam_gonzalez/