Training of Judges in EC Competition Law

In 2004 The Institute successfully tendered for a European Commission training project on Training Accession State Judges in Competition Law which was implemented in Brussels in March 2005 with 38 judges from 14 Member States in attendance. The CLF Director, Junior Fellow and CLF members provided the expert training.

The programme gave an overview of the interaction between policy and law; a brief historical introduction to the approach of EU law and the predominant economic approach in the EU; and comparison with other approaches. It then examined:

  • Key Competition Law Concepts
  • Competition and the State
  • Procedure and Institutions
  • Interaction of Competition Law and other topics

Many of the judges were from Member States still making the transition to a market economy and so the programme was oriented away from economic theory and towards the role of competition in a market economy, or a transition economy, by reference to how competition law itself has developed in Europe and other jurisdictions.