Chillin'Competition

On 1 April 2020 we lost Rubén Perea, a gentle and kind young man and a bright lawyer who had just graduated from the College of Europe and was about to start a career in competition law. The loss of Rubén after a brave fight against cancer and missed surgeries due to the Covid-19 outbreak in a way symbolizes for us what we lost in 2020.

We decided to set up an award to honor his memory, and to recognize the work of other promising competition lawyers/economists under 30.

We received a large number of submissions. These were reviewed by a devoted jury composed of reknown experts, some of whom were also friends, former teachers or colleagues of Rubén, namely Damien Gerard, Lena Hornkhol, David Pérez de Lamo, Michele Piergiovanni, Gianni de Stefano and myself (our gratitude goes to all of them for devoting part of their time to this project).

It was a tough job, but the Jury has now selected a winner who, when the circumstances allow it, will receive the Award from Executive Vice-President Vestager, who very kindly and immediately accepted our invitation.

And the winner of the 1st edition of the Rubén Perea award is…

VLADYA REVERDIN, for her paper: “Abuse of Dominance in Digital Markets: Can Amazon’s collection and use of third-party sellers’ data constitute an abuse of a dominant position under the legal standards developed by the European Courts for Article 102 TFEU?“

The Jury also selected other 4 papers of particularly high quality. JECLAP will publish these papers in a special issue that will also feature Ruben’s LLM paper and an introduction from his friends. The selected papers and authors are:

–The Selective Advantage Criterion in Tax Rulings: The Path Towards a More Coherent and Thorough Analysis of Selectivity (by Nieves Bayón Fernández)

-When does Algorithmic Pricing Result in an Intra-Platform Anticompetitive Agreement or Concerted Practice? The Case of Uber in the Framework of EU Competition Law (by Hubert Bekisz)

–At the Mercy of the Gatekeeper: the Theory and Practice of Undertakings’ Fundamental Rights in the EU Cartel Settlement Procedure (by Stefan Ciubotaru)

-Which Sustainability Agreements are not Caught by Article 101(1) TFEU? (by David Wouters)

Our warmest congratulations go to Vladya, as well as to Nieves, Hubert, Stefan and David!

And thanks a million also to all those who submitted their work for this award; you truly made the Jury have a hard time.