María Marelza Cózar is a senior associate in the Dispute Resolution: Litigation and Arbitration practice area and belongs to the Transport and Maritime Industry. She is part of the Garrigues Digital team and the Industry 4.0 Hub. 

She handles legal defence in complex litigation, financial litigation, claims for damages arising from anti-competitive practices, and transport law (maritime, air and land transport). She has extensive experience in port law, port licences and administrative concessions in the public port domain.

She assists clients across the maritime industry, including shipowners, charterers, ship managers, operators, traders, cargo owners, shipbuilders, finance providers or insurance companies and whatever type of vessel or marine craft may be involved, including tankers, LNG/LPG carriers, containerships, ferries, cruise ships, yachts and offshore support vessels.

She handles the full range of wet and dry, contentious and transactional shipping. She has also an extensive experience in regulatory and compliance issues arising in the maritime context. She advises clients in the port industry and maritime infrastructure –port authorities, terminal operators, shipping lines, oil & gas contractors, etc.- and has experience in concessions, regulatory and compliance.

She has experience in aviation regulatory and commercial law.

• Degree in Law , Universidad Carlos III, Madrid.
• Degree in Economics, Universidad Carlos III, Madrid.
• Certified Course "Experto Legal&Compliance en Blockchain, Smart Contratcs, Tokenización y Criptoactivos", Consejo General de la Abogacía Española and the Instituto Jurídico Blockchain Intellingence, Madrid.
• Postgraduate studies in Compliance, Universidad Carlos III -Madrid- and Pompeu Fabra -Barcelona-.
• Executive Program on Port Law, Instituto de Empresa (IE), Madrid.
• LLM Master’s Degree in Maritime Law, Universidad de Cádiz and Puertos del Estado (Spanish Port Authority), Cádiz.

She lectures on several programmes at Centro de Estudios Garrigues:

• Executive Master's Degree in Business Management in the Luxury and Fashion Industry.
• Executive Fashion Law Programme: Digital Transformation in Retail and Fashion.
• Executive Programme in Corporate Compliance

She is a regular speaker at various universities and collaborates with associations such as the Spanish Shipowners’ Association, the Spanish Yachting Association, the Spanish Aviation Association and the Spanish Road Transport Association.

• Member of the Madrid Bar Association.
• Member of the WISTA (Women's International Shipping & Trading Association).

María is co-author of the book "Manual de Acceso a la Abogacía", published by Tirant Lo Blanch. She is co-author of the book “Defensa Corporativa y Compliance”, published by Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, and “Comentarios sobre la nueva ley de navegación marítima”, published by Actualidad Jurídica Aranzadi BIB 2014\4113. She has participated also in the publication of the normative code “Código Electrónico de la Moda”, published by the Boletin Oficial del Estado (B.O.E).