EU Competition Law

Pre-requisite: Students should be acquainted with EU law prior to taking this module or should consult with the module lecturer to ascertain whether this module is appropriate for them.

Advisory: if you have not studied before the law of the European Union or if you are not fully conversant with one of the official languages of the European Union this course is not advised. The course proceeds on direct study of primary official EU texts.

A, Purpose. To teach (i) European competition law (ii) familiarity with primary legal materials (iii) analytical lawyering ability. The module innovates in basing itself on primary materials published by the EU, of which an online manual is composed, such as Treaty Articles, Regulations and Directives, and extending to official Notices and Vade Mecum. It eschews heavy reliance on academic commentary and case law analysis, with some exceptions for illustrative purposes. The purpose of the module is threefold. First, acquaintance with the subject matter. Second, skills training in the reading and analysis of primary materials, such as Regulation 1/2003 Third, the development of independent critical and scholarly argument and exposition based on the primary materials. Students should be aware that this module does not follow textbooks but looks directly to primary instruments and moves from instrument to instrument, rather than primarily thematically.

Substantive EU competition law. Articles 101-106 (TFEU). Areas not covered are Mergers, State Aids, and great detail about procedures before the European Commission. Many primary documents are covered. The focus is on these. There is relatively little focus on the case law of the Court of Justice or on secondary literature. By this means, the course may be taken by those with experience of EU competition law, and those with none. Students from outside Europe with no acquaintance of the EU institutional and treaty framework may take the course without notable disadvantage, provided they do some primer reading in the first two weeks.

Learning Outcomes:

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Describe and summarize the primary materials on competition law published by the EU, of which the module manual is composed, such as Treaty Articles, Regulations, Directives and official Notices;
• Analyse, breakdown, and interpret those primary materials;
• Create and illustrate independent authoritative argument and exposition on the basis of those materials and break any hold of assumptions of secondary literature and narrative.

Assessment: 

• Two x 3,000 word essay

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