Lia Athanassiou is Professor of Commercial Law with senior full-time tenure at the Law School of the University of Athens, teaching mainly Shipping Law, Competition Law, Company Law as well as EU State Aids Law. She is also the Director of the Post Graduate Program on Business Law at the above University.

Professor Athanassiou holds a PhD Degree at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne as well as authorization by the University of Paris I-Sorbonne to supervise University research. She was Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School (2007-08) and Fulbright Scholar (2007-08). She has lectured and effectuated academic research in several foreign Institutions (USA, Malta, UK, Italy, France, Germany).

Barrister at law entitled to plead before the Supreme Court with experience in consulting and arbitration. She has been appointed as Member (alternate and full) of the Hellenic Competition Authority (2003-08). In 2015, she was appointed member of the Committee of Experts of the International Labor Organization (ILO-Geneva).

She has published extensively on Maritime, Competition, Industrial Property, Energy, Company, European and Transport law. Participation in and organization of numerous international and national Conferences and Congresses. Among her latest publications: Maritime Cross-border Insolvenses (Informa 2018, in English), The notion of Undertaking, cartels, Impositions of fines, Structural and behavioral measures, actions for damages, in (D. Tzouganatos ed.) Competition Law (2013) and Maritime Law, by A. Antapassis/ L. Athanassiou (2020).