Chillin'Competition

A few days ago it was reported that the Danish presidency had proposed that 12 extra Judges to the General Court be appointed pursuant to a “lottery system”. At first we thought it was an April’s fools joke, but no, it’s actually a true story.

We have already expressed here some of our opinions with respect to the debate concerning the reform of the General Court. In our view, people matter more than institutional arrangements; or, in other words, if Member States appoint the right Judges then the backlog and most other problems could be effectively solved. Many Member States have already done so and, needless to say, there are currently a number incredibly good and productive Judges at the General Court.

And speaking of judicial nominations, EU Governments are meeting this week to vote on the appointments or re-appointments of a number of Judges and Advocates General at the upper ECJ.

It has been reported elsewhere that EU Governments will reappoint Judges Arabadjiev, Arestis, Berger, Bonichot, Fernlund, Jarasiunas, Levits, Malenovsky, Prechal and Von Danwitz as well as AG Bot, and that the new faces will be Judge Da Cruz Villaça (Portuguese; former President of the GC and very familiar with competition law issues) and Advocates General Nils Wahl (Swedish; former Judge at the GC and another very good competition expert) and Melchior Wathelet (Belgian; lawyer and economist from the University of Liège with a Harvard LL.M; also former Judge at the ECJ).

What we believe no one else has yet reported is that the UK has formally nominated a renowned competition lawyer, Christopher Vajda QC, as the new British Judge at the ECJ. The letter sent to the Council by the UK´s permanent representation officially informing them of the proposal (and including Mr. Vajda’s CV and list of publications) is publicly available here.