LL4AF      Half Unit
Principles of Global Competition Law

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

This course provides an overview of the major features of contemporary competition (antitrust) law. Competition law provides a set of legal rules which aim to control the exercise of market power by firms in ways that are socially harmful, whether through hardcore cartels, single firm monopoly behaviour, or mergers that reduce structural competition. This is a discipline that has undergone a remarkable process of expansion in recent decades, and competition laws have now been adopted in around 140 jurisdictions worldwide.

Instead of focusing on a particular regime, the module addresses the fundamental ideas and debates underlying the adoption and evolution of competition law, which are studied in comparative perspective. Examples drawn primarily from EU and US competition law will be used by way of illustration. We will also consider on-going and often contentious questions within contemporary competition law, including the optimal goals for competition enforcement, the appropriate role for economic analysis in this task, and the scope for regional divergences.

This introductory course assumes no prior knowledge of competition law or economics, and aims to equip students to understand and analyse the key substantive elements found within most competition regimes. These include:

• Competition policy and basic concepts of antitrust economics;

• Anti-competitive agreements, including cartels and vertical restraints;

• Unilateral conduct rules, including refusal to deal and exclusionary practices; and

• Merger control (in outline).

10 hours of lectures and 10 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

It is taught by way of a one-hour lecture (recorded) which provides an overview of each topic, plus a one-hour small group discussion class each week. Active participation in the discussion class, which is not recorded, will be required from all students.

All students are expected to produce one formative essay during the course.

• Whish & Bailey, Competition Law (11th ed., 2024);
• Jones & Sufrin, EU Competition Law: Cases and Materials (8th ed., 2023);
• Roger van den Bergh, Comparative Competition Law and Economics (2017); and
• Hovenkamp, The Antitrust Enterprise (2005).

Written test (100%)

This assessment will be held under exam conditions and will take place in the January exam period.