Helena Malikova

Helena Malikova is a European Union civil servant with the European competition watchdog the Directorate General for Competition (DG COMP) at the European Commission in Brussels. Helena is attached to the directorate investigating foreign subsidies flowing into the European economy. She is currently leading the directorate’s work on intelligence gathering and investigations and is researching the valuation of strategic M&A facilitated by foreign governments. Helena was previously a member of the Chief Economist Team at DG COMP advocating for greater use of financial and business data in antitrust economics. Prior to that role, Helena led the investigation under European State aid rules into the tax planning practices of multinational corporations including those of Big Tech firms. She led the State aid investigation into the tax planning deal agreed between Apple and Ireland, the company was ordered to pay 13 billion euro plus interest as a result. During the financial crisis, Helena was part of the European Commission’s Financial Crisis Task Force where she helped assess the bailout and restructuring of numerous European banks.

Helena practices competition policy across the broad spectrum of European antitrust enforcement. She has been called upon to lead and participate in unannounced inspections, or raids, of corporate premises in sectors from e-books to pharmaceuticals. In addition, she has published on the geopolitics of artificial intelligence and conflicts of interest among antitrust economists, academics and economic consultancies advising on regulation. Helena started her career with Société Générale and Credit Suisse as a Foreign Exchange (FX) sales trader, and she is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Helena has previously been a fellow at UC Berkeley and at the Harvard Kennedy School. She is a fellow at Centre for Digital Governance at the Hertie School, Berlin.