Dr Pablo Ibanez Colomo

Available to final year LLB students. It is also available to General Course students and as an outside option.  A knowledge of EC law is desirable but not essential.

Competition law plays a major (and growing) role in the life of companies. In liberalised sectors, where entry and exit is free (which is to say in virtually all sectors of the economy), the behaviour of market players is constrained by rules conceived to ensure that consumers benefit from the competitive process in the form of lower prices, better product quality and increased innovation.

Following an introduction in which competition law is put in its economic and political context, the course covers the main substantive and procedural aspects of the discipline, and more precisely the rules applying to: (i) anticompetitive agreements (such as price-fixing cartels and distribution agreements); (ii) abusive practices by dominant firms and (iii) mergers and acquisitions. In each of these areas, the course examines the systems in place in the EU and the UK. References to other regimes, and in particular to US law, will be made when relevant.

One hour lecture and one hour class.

Students will be required to do one piece of written work in MT and LT.

R. Whish Competition Law (6th ed 2008; 7th ed forthcoming); A. Jones and B. Sufrin, EU Competition Law (4th ed 2010); H. Hovenkamp, The Antitrust Enterprise (2005), G. Monti, EC Competition Law (2007); Mark Furse, Competition Law of the EC and the UK (6th ed 2008; 7th ed forthcoming by Sandra Marco Colino)

One three-hour examination in the ST worth 75% and one assessed essay worth 25%.