European Union Competition Law
Content
This course is an introduction to EC competition law for law students who are not necessarily familiar with EC law (although existing knowledge of EC law would be an asset), but have an interest in antitrust law and/or the European single market. This course explores both the legal and the economic principles underlying the EC competition law regime, and will have both theoretical and practical components. It is focusing first and foremost on EC competition law but not excluding forays into US and other nations? competition laws as well. Particular attention will be given to the growing global dimension of antitrust with corporations facing parallel investigations and court actions in a number of countries (for instance, the US, the EU, Korea and Japan).
Objectives
At the end of this course, students should have reached the following goals:
*Functional knowledge of EC competition law, with the ability to work by taking specific situations (as opposed to legal provisions) as a starting point;
*Knowledge of and sensitivity for the use of economics in competition law;
*Ability to take a critical look at competition law and its development;
*Ability to apply EC competition law to complex set of facts; and
*Understanding of the main different between the US and the EU antitrust regimes, and the complexity of coordinating an antitrust defence across jurisdictions.
Practical abilities
Throughout the meetings, the students are expected to present their answers to various types of problems. The assumption is that the students are able both to “think inside the box”, i.e. put their ideas within the framework of analysis that is used in practice and to take some critical distance from the law. Each meeting will deal with a specific case or issue which all students are expected to have prepared by doing the required readings.