Chillin'Competition

To many people, Liege is an old industrial city which has little to offer.

But Liège has a great geographical position. It is just a 100 kms away from Brussels. Thanks to this, it is close from many brainy competition (and IP) professionals. This is what prompted my predecessor Prof. Geradin to create a bilingual LLM in EU Competition and IP law.

Now that we have a 8 years track record, I think I can modestly pretend – pardon the bias – that we have the best, and most likely the cheapest –  several hundred  € – LL.M in competition (and IP) law of Europe .

Obviously there’s a downside with cheap tuition fees: little money for my research centre. But there’s a big upside: in Liege, we are not bound to award degrees to poor LL.M students that should be failed. Put differently, our evaluation process is not influenced by the risk of losing money out of a decrease in prospective applications  [on second thoughts, it may not be good advertisement to say publicly that we fail students: we do not fail that many].

Now, our LL.M has been increasingly successful in the past years, attracting students from everywhere in Europe and outside (Peru, China, Russia, etc.). I trust the many conferences we organize in Brussels and the opportunities for publication in e-competitions are interesting for prospective students.

This year, we’ll open a full-english version of the LL.M programme. It will be opened to students from far-away countries, who have no background and no professional interest in the French language.  The programme of this English-based LL.M can be found hereafter.

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See below. Found on LL.M Guide, a website advertising LL.Ms. One student made a strong plea in favour of our LL.M. in Liege. This triggered disagreement on the forum, with a respondent  rightly arguing that I am not a “leading competition scholar” (as opposed to other “gods” of competition law, amongst which the amazingly good and esteemed Prof. Richard Whish).

The chap who replies to him certainly has a point. It is still a long way to the top for me. If one day, I could get only close to Whish’s teaching skills…

Anyway, the funny thing is that I have thought a lot in the past weeks as to how I could improve my way of doing business.  At this stage, my conclusion is that I need to refocus a little on things  that really matter. To this end, I am facing a number of options on which I would certainly love feedback from my readers.

As far as time management is concerned – am running on scarce resources – shall I

1. Stop the blog?;
2. Quit GCLC?;
3. Quit the new born BSC?;
4. Surrender the Direction of the Liege Institute for European Legal Studies?
5. Quit other courses which I give on an occasional basis (EDHEC in France, MGIMO in Russia, etc.)
6. Stop organizing conferences

As to the selection of my areas of scientific interest, shall I:

1. Keep an interest in the various areas of competition enforcement (101, 102 and merger control) or focus only on a micro area of EU competition law?
2. Keep following Belgian and French competition laws, in parallel to EU competition law?
3. Start writing papers in English only, or continue my 50/50 balance between contributions in  French and English?

Happy to get your feedback on the above.

Nota: The picture above is taken from one of the greatest rock LPs of all time (source here). This LP features the title “It’s a long way to the top”, which has one of the most addictive and catchy riffs I have ever heard.

Last Monday, a group of  LL.M. students from the University of Liege (ULg) won the concours Lamy de la concurrence held at the French NCA in Paris. The team was composed of Anne-Sophie Come, Mathieu Coquelet, Pierre Sabbadini, Willem de Vos and Norman Neyrinck (coach). This is obviously a source of great satisfaction and pride. Hat tip to the students and their coach.

Below, the new LL.M. brochure for 2010.

LLM in Competition and IP Law – 2010

Hat tip and best of luck to my LL.M. students A-S. Come, M. Coquelet, M. DeVos and P. Sabbadini, who have reached the finals of the Concours Lamy de la Concurrence, and are now invited to Paris to plead their case at the French NCA. I am really proud. Congrats’ also to their coach Norman Neyrinck.

Again, our LL.M. offers unique training in antitrust and IP law, and this is just the proof of it.

Here’s a link to the subject of the concours.

Amongst my various University activities (and besides research), the one I prefer is to manage the ULg’s bilingual LLM in EU Competition and IP law (created, back in the day, in 2004, by my predecessor Prof. Damien Geradin). 

This LL.M has been increasingly successful in the past years, attracting students from everywhere in Europe and outside (Peru, China, etc.). I trust the many conferences we organize in Brussels, the bilingual format of the programme (English-French) and the opportunities for publication in e-competitions are interesting for prospective students.

Since my appointment a few years ago, I have nonetheless had the feeling that the programme could be improved, in particular by increasing its focus on core IP and competition law subjects.

To this end, I have recently undertaken, with the help of some colleagues – I shall here thank in particular Prof. Alain Strowel and my assistant Norman Neyrinck – to bring improvements to the LL.M.

Following weeks of ruminations and discussions, I am proud to disclose the 2.0 version of the bilingual LLM in competition and IP law of the University of Liege. The new programme, which can be found below, will enter into force in the next academic year 2010-2011. A brochure is in the pipeline, and will be out shortly.

The challenge now: how to best disseminate this without being ripped off having to pay thousands of euros to commercial advertising websites? If you have any clue, or feel like helping, please drop me a line. If you know people who could send our programme to students, please also contact me.

European Competition Policy and the Lisbon Treaty: Dawn of a new era or business as usual?– Patrick Vincent (P.Vincent@student.ulg.ac.be)

In the post-Lisbon Treaty era, the reference to “free and undistorted competition” previously enshrined in Article 3(g) EC has disappeared from the forefront of the EU treaties. The present dissertation seeks to assess whether the elimination of this provision – and its replacement by a Protocol appended to the Treaty – is likely to affect the effectiveness of European competition policy. Whilst scholars are divided on this issue, there nonetheless seems to be a growing concern that European competition policy might as a result be increasingly influenced by external, public-policy, considerations, which to date have played a marginal role in the Commission’s orthodox enforcement policy. To test the veracity of this proposition, the present dissertation will review a number of concrete practical issues (environmental agreements, etc.), where considerations alien to core competition concerns might be invoked by stakeholders.

The Strategic Use of EU Competition Law: Typology and Assessment – Anne-Sophie Come (annesophie.come@gmail.com)

Legal affairs are no longer a “support” function for business entities. Firms increasingly rely on legal rules, proceedings and remedies, as strategic, profit maximising, levers. As a result of this evolution, firms increasingly seek to use (some say “instrumentalize”) the legal system in order to gain competitive advantages over/inflict competitive disadvantages to their rivals. In this context, it is the purpose of this dissertation to review the extent to which firms seek to use, and have used, EU competition law for strategic business reasons alien to the mere eradication of anticompetitive conduct in the market place. To this end, it provides a new reading of a number of well-known cases  decided by the Commission and the Court of Justice.

An Analysis of the Decision of the Commission of 12 may 2009 concerning RFID and Data Protection – Laurie Caucheteux (Laurie.Caucheteux@student.ulg.ac.be)