Course one: UK and EU Competition Law

Course one of our Comparative Competition Law Summer School is a five day intensive masterclass on UK and EU competition law, including practical workshops and course evaluation.

The programme covers the full suite of competition law substantive topics and procedure and integrates insights from law, policy and economics. It reflects the most up-to-date experience in the practice of competition law and risk management, including in the burgeoning field of private damages actions.

The UK’s withdrawal from the EU presents new challenges and opportunities for the development of UK competition law and where the UK is expected to continue to be a prominent competition law regime internationally.

The course will explore:

The key legal, economic and policy foundations of competition law
The role of economics in competition law
The treatment under EU and UK competition law of agreements, commercial practices and mergers and their impact on international transactions
Sector and market investigations in the EU and UK
The intersection between IP and competition law
The application of competition law to activities by the state including EU state aid and public procurement law and EU public law contained in Article 106 TFEU and Article 4(3) TEU
Issues for competition law risk management including dawn raids, criminalisation and leniency
The relationship between competition law and sector regulation and the application of competition law in specific industry sectors (e.g. communications, energy, financial services, healthcare, and transport)
The impact of Brexit on EU and UK competition law

Key benefits:

Insights from the EU and UK experience in this fast-moving and high profile area
Interactive case studies and workshops
Experience and presentation from a leading practitioner and author in the field, Suzanne Rab who has advised on some of the largest competition law deals internationally and is author of leading texts on competition law and IPR. Suzanne is the author of Atkins Court Forms in Civil Proceedings, Competition Law, Volume 10, 2016; Cross-Border Copyright Licensing, Law and Practice, Elgar Intellectual Property Law and Practice series, 2018 (co-contributor); Indian Competition Law, an International Perspective (first published by Wolters Kluwer, May 2012; with a supplement of cartel regulation published in January 2013)
Certificate of Satisfactory Completion on satisfactory completion of the course and Competition Law Certificate of Attendance upon achieving the required pass-mark
Cultural immersion into ‘legal London’ including visits to the courts, the Inns of Court and a leading barristers Chambers
Opportunity to combine the course with Course 2 (Practical Skills for Competition Dispute Resolution), Course 3 (International Competition Law) and Course 4 (Comparative Media Ownership Regulation)

The course will be of particular interest to:

Non-competition lawyers (or competition lawyers post-career break) who want to acquire an understanding of competition law sufficient to have the right reflexes to be able to identify competition issues in their day-to-day work.
Post-graduate students who want a taster of competition law before deciding whether to specialise by doing an LLM or PhD in competition law.
New staff at UK competition and regulatory authorities as part of their induction.
Mid-sized UK law firms who want to give trainees or recently qualified lawyers an understanding of competition law, but who do not have the size/depth of in-house expertise to organise the training internally.
Large companies/companies based in UK/EU more likely to be the object of competition law scrutiny who want to give staff an understanding of competition law, but who do not have the size/depth of in-house expertise to organise the training internally.
Regulatory policy-makers seeking a robust substantive and practical grounding in EU and UK competition law to inform their development of competition and regulatory policy.

Duration: Five days. Induction will take place on 16 June 2019

The course timetable

Induction: 16 June 2019

4:00 – 5:00

Welcome and Introduction to Brunel University London
Tour of campus and buildings
Questions and answers

Day one: 17 June 2019

9:30 – 10:00	Welcome and introduction to the course With welcome from Professor Arad Reisberg
10:00 – 11:30	Introduction to competition law: Basic concepts
11:30 – 12:00	Break
12:00 – 1:00	Introduction to the EU legal framework and institutions
1:00 – 2:00	Lunch
2:00 – 3:30	Market definition
3:30 – 4:00	Break
4:00 – 5:30	Restrictive agreements and cartels

Day two: 18 June 2019

9:30 – 10:30	Abuse of market power
10:30 – 11:30	Workshop on agreements and abuse of market power
11:30 – 12:00	Break
12:00 – 1:00	Introduction to merger control regimes worldwide
1:00 – 2:00	Lunch
*2:00 – 3:30*	*EU and UK merger control*
3:30 – 4:00	Break
4:00 – 5:30	Workshop on merger control

Day three: 19 June 2019

9:30 – 10:30	Sector and market investigations
10:30 – 11:30	Sector-specific application of competition law
11:30 – 12:00	Break
12:00 – 1:00	*Workshop on sector-specific application of competition law*
1:00 – 2:00	Lunch
2:00 – 3:30	*State aid, procurement and dealing with public bodies*
3:30 – 4:00	Break
4:00 – 5:30	*Workshop on dealing with public authorities*

Day four: 20 June 2019

9:30 – 10:30	Competition law and IP
10:30 – 11:30	Workshop on competition law and IP
11:30 – 12:00	Break
12:00 – 1:00	Private enforcement in competition cases
1:00 – 2:00	Lunch
2:00 – 3:30	Competition law risk management
3:30 – 4:00	Break
4:00 – 5:30	Workshop on competition law risk management

Day five: 21 June 2019

Day Five will take place in London with academic sessions at a leading Chambers and cultural visits to ‘legal London’.

9:30 – 10:30	*Economics for competition lawyers*
10:30 – 11:30	*Economics for competition lawyers: Workshop*
11:30 – 12:00	Break
12:00 – 1:00	*Impact of Brexit on EU and UK competition law*
1:00 – 2:15	Lunch at one of the Inns of Court
3:00 – 4:00	Visit to the Supreme Court
4:00 – 5:00	De-brief and concluding remarks

Course evaluation

Candidates will complete a 2 part exam, which (if passed) will gain the student a Certificate of attendance in Competition Law for Course 1.
The exam consists of 1 short essay question (up to 1000 words) out of a choice of 5 options [60 marks] and 20 multiple choice questions [40 marks].
The Certificate will be awarded on achieving 60 marks or more and 90% attendance.