Chillin'Competition

I heard in Vienna that Oxford University Press (OUP) will be launching in 2009 the Journal of European Competition Law & Practice. This new bi-monthly journal intends to have a strong practical flavour. It will be edited by T. Lubbig and P. Nihoul and seeks, from what I am told, to compete head-to-head with the well-known European Competition Law Review (ECLR) from Sweet & Maxwell.  Yet, I understand that ECLR has lately focused a lot on national competition law, and that this journal’s purpose is to deal primarily with EC competition law.

Interestingly,it ought to be noted that this new journal is not pure, greenfield, entry for OUP, but expansion with a new title besides, amongst others, OUP’s Journal of Competition Law and Economics (JOCLE). Whilst some may think that OUP’s move is not necessarily safe because the new journal may partly eat away some of the JOCLE readership, I understand the two journals are not substitutes, but complements (with the JOCLE focusing primarily on longer studies, with a stronger scientific, economic and comparative – EC/US – flavour).

My feeling is that OUP’s agressive, ambitious, expansion strategy should be welcome. I have indeed often deplored the paucity of european competition law journals. Let’s just hope that the pricing of this new title will be affordable.