Jury-Judges

Alexander de Becker

Alexander De Becker is Professor and Doctor of Laws and obtained his PhD titled ‘Legal foundations of the legal status of public servants’ in 2006. He teaches among other courses ‘Labour Law’, ‘Social Protetion’, ‘The State as Employer’ at the Faculty of Law and Criminology and ‘Labour Law in Health Organisations’ at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of Ghent University. His niche covers the legal status  public service employees in a strong comparative law and international context, but he also has a large expertise in administrative law and labour law in general. However, he does research in the larger domain of labour in a comparative perspective. 

Martin Gruber-Risak

Martin Gruber-Risak is Associate Professor of Labour Law and Law of Social Security at the University of Vienna where he teaches and undertakes independent research in the fields of of Austrian, European and Comparative Labour Law, Social Security, Industrial Relations and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Since 2024 he is also the scientific director of the post-graduate Master program “Arbeitsrecht” (LL.M.). Since 2012 Martin has been the national expert for Austria – European Center of Expertise of Labour Law, Employment and Labour market Policies (ECE) that provides legal expertise for the European Commission.

Daniela Krömer

Daniela Krömer is a lawyer specializing in employment law and European law. She joined the employment law team at CMS in 2013 and is Co-Head of the CMS Employment & Pensions Group in 2023. In this position, she leads an international team of 280 lawyers.  
In addition to traditional employment law advice, she also supports clients with a focus on European employment law issues, for example in the area of cross-border labor deployment, in particular in the area of wage and social dumping and equal treatment issues.

Sylvaine Laulom

Advocate General at the Court of Cassation (France), Social Chamber. Professor of Labour Law, University Lumière Lyon 2.

Mariagrazia Lombardi

PHD in EU labour law, Senior officer at ELA.

Ulla Liukkunen

Ulla Liukkunen is professor of labour law and private international law at the University of Helsinki. In 2022, she gave lectures on 'Mandatory Rules in International Labour Law' at the Hague Academy of International Law. She was a general rapporteur of the IACL XXth World Conference, Fukuoka 2018 with the theme 'The Role of Collective Bargaining in Labour Law Regimes'. She is a Vice Chair of the Mediation Board of the European Labour Authority ELA.

Yne Machiels

Yne Machiels has been an attorney since September 2012.

She provides advice on all questions that may arise in the context of employment and self-employment, both on a collective and individual level in both the private and public sector, and assists clients in the context of legal proceedings and social inspections. She has special interests in questions related to privacy, international mobility, discrimination, whistleblowers, restructurings and dismissal files and frequently assists foreign companies looking to develop their business in Belgium. 

Yne also regularly speaks at seminars and is a published author on topics including psychosocial risks at work and whistleblowing legislation.

Yne graduated in law with a specialisation in social law from the University of Antwerp (2011 – cum laude). Subsequently, she obtained a degree in social law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (2012 – cum laude). She also obtained the degree in pension law at the University of Leuven (2020 - magna cum laude).

Prior to joining Reliance Littler in December 2015, Yne worked as an attorney at the firm Claeys & Engels from 2012 to 2015. Since 2023, she is contributing to the success of Reliance Littler as partner

Tonia Novitz

Tonia Novitz is a Professor of Labour Law at the University of Bristol Law School in the UK. A graduate of the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) and Balliol College (Oxford, UK), she has held fellowships at the International Institute for Labour Studies and the research department at the International Labour Organization (Geneva), the European University Institute (Florence), the University of Melbourne and the University of Auckland. From 2019 - 2023, she was chair of the steering committee of the international Labour Law Research Network (LLRN). She is currently a UK representative on the advisory board of International Lawyers Assisting Workers (ILAW), and a Vice President of the UK Institute of Employment Rights. She was a founding co-director of the Bristol Centre for Law at Work. Her research interests encompass collective labour rights, international and EU trade, sustainability and migration. Her publications have been cited in the Supreme Court of Canada, the UK Supreme Court and the UK Parliament Joint Committee on Human Rights. She is the author of International and European Protection of the Right to Strike (Oxford University Press 2003) and co-author of The Right to Strike in International Law (Hart/Bloomsbury 2020). Her most recent book, Trade, Labour and Sustainable Development: Leaving no one in the world of work behind is in press and will be published by Edward Elgar in 2024.

Luca Ratti

Luca Ratti is an Associate Professor of European and Comparative Labour Law and Director of the Master in European Law (I year) at the University of Luxembourg.

Prior to joining the University of Luxembourg, he was Senior Researcher and Adjunct Professor of Labour law and Social security at the University of Bologna, where he also obtained his Doctorate.

Since 2019 is national expert for Luxembourg at the ECE European Labour Law Network.

From 2020 to 2023, he has coordinated as PI the Horizon2020 project "WorkYP: Working, Yet Poor", focused on in-work poverty and European social citizenship. Since May 2021, he has also been coordinating as co-PI the W@W interdisciplinary project on wellbeing at work, funded by the Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) at the University of Luxembourg (2021-2024).

He currently holds a Jean Monnet Chair in European labour law to research and teach on the Sustainability of the European Social Model (2022-2025).

Lejo Sibbel

Lejo Sibbel has been the Sr. Specialist on Social Dialogue and Labour Law in the Budapest Office of the International Labour Organization (ILO) since May 2023. In this function his main responsibility is to promote the improved conformity of national legislative frameworks, and the practical application thereof, with the international labour standards of the ILO. He is a human rights expert specialized in the field of labour rights, with thirty years international experience, of which 25 years with the United Nations/ILO. He has lived and worked in different countries in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Matthieu Simon

Matthieu Simon was a lawyer in a firm specializing in labour law. He has been a prosecutor since 2015, specializing in social law and criminal law. He is Belgium's national coordinator for human trafficking. He has been teaching social law at the University of Liège (Business School) since 2018. He regularly publishes scholarly articles.

Matthieu SIMON a été avocat dans un cabinet spécialisé en droit du travail. Il est procureur depuis 2015, spécialisé en droit social et droit pénal. Il est coordinateur national en Belgique pour la traite des êtres humains. Il enseigne le droit du travail à l’Université de Liège (Business School) depuis 2018. Il publie régulièrement des articles de doctrine.