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Transcript

My name is Albertina Albors-Llorens and I’m here today to say a few words about the Competition Law course in the LL.M. Competition is a subject that used to be very much on the fringes, but now has become one that every commercial and EU lawyer wants to know about. Now, the competition course that we offer in the LL.M. is very much an EU competition course, because we have so many students from non-British jurisdictions and it’s the only competition course in the LL.M., so we thought that was the best approach to that particular course. We will make some references to UK competition law, but they are by no means a substantial part of the course. The main focus is to look at EU competition law.

So let me tell you a little bit about how the course is organised from a substantive point of view. So essentially the focus of the course are the two key competition provisions in the treaty, that is to say, Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. Some of you will have looked at this maybe when you did your general EU law courses and some of you may not have looked at them at all and that’s fine, because we start from the beginning. So Article 101 has to do with anti-competitive behaviour that results from cooperation between undertakings. So when you have more than one undertaking that get together and engage in anti-competitive behaviour, for example, cartels, for example, quotas, for example, agreements to fix the market when they are going to sell and so forth.

On the other hand, we have Article 102 that deals with abuse of dominant position by one or more undertaking, that is to say monopoly and abuse of power. So those are the main provisions that we look at in this course. In addition to that, we also look at the system of mergers in the European Union in quite a lot of detail and then we touch a little bit on the rules that apply to private undertakings. Finally, we look at the enforcement of the competition provisions, so Articles 101 and 102 and how they are enforced at national level and at Union level. So if you look at past papers, if you look at previous syllabuses for this course, you will see how the syllabus was much broader before because we also looked at the state aid and international dimension of competition. We have cut down from the course and isolated it to what I described earlier on.

So that’s mainly what we cover from a substantive point of view. You I am sure may be aware, because this is a subject that is always in the news, that there have been radical changes in the field of competition law. Over the past year there has been a new [inaudible 02.47] in vertical agreements, even over the past year, but recently new notices on the application of Article 102, new guidelines on mergers. All that is fully incorporated in the course and we hope that it will make it more stimulating and interesting.

In terms of who teaches in the course, this year it’s going to be taught by Mr Bill Allan, who worked in the competition department for over 30 years, he’s got tremendous experience in the field of competition in general and more in particular in the context of Article 102 on mergers, which is what he teaches in the courseand he’s been teaching in Cambridge for the past six or seven years and he’s got a lot of experience. I should say he’s also tremendously generous with his time, so in addition to his weekly lectures, he always offers small group teaching on a weekly basis, which is a wonderful contribution to those taking the course. Now, I teach the other part of the course, that is to say Article 101and the enforcement of competition law at national and EU level.

In addition to the lectures and the small group teaching seminars that we are going to be offering, we also invite every year at least one or two guest speakers to talk about important or current issues in EU competition law. This year in the Michaelmas term we are expecting already on 9th November a partner and a senior associate from Herbert Smith, who are going to come and tell us about the practical application of the new block exemption on vertical agreements so we will have lectures on this and then they will show you the practical dimension and how is that applied in real contexts and basically in the real world. I am sure in the Lent term we will have also someone else, but that is not confirmed as yet.

Now, one question that the students very frequently ask me about this course is first of all whether they need to know something about economics before they start the course. Obviously competition and economics are very closely related, so if you have that knowledge, it’s wonderful, but this is a law course and we start from the beginning, so we don’t assume that anybody has an economics background. If you have it, so much the better, but it’s not essential to do the course.

In the same manner, a background in EU law is very useful, I’m not going to deny that, but we have had many students in previous years from jurisdictions where they have never done any EU law, like Australia or Canada and they have done exceptionally well in the course. So it’s not a hindrance or an obstacle and you can do some sort of general reading on the basics of EU law and then move on to competition law.

Now, in terms of the structure of the course, normally we have quite a lot of students doing competition and that’s the reason why the thesis option is not an option with this paper and in terms of the exam, it’s a closed book exam, so that is the only method of assessment for this paper. That is a three hour exam and it is, as I say, a closed book exam. Now, do you have any questions? You are very welcome to approach me in the faculty or to email me or to ask me. The first session will be next Wednesday at 10 o’clock and there we will start with a general introduction to competition law. Are there any questions now that anybody would like to ask? I look forward as I say to seeing as many as possible next week.

Added on 05/10/2011.

Last modified on 11/10/2011

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