Valentine Korah (1928-2023)
Valentine Korah left us a few days ago. It has been very moving to hear and read the tributes of those who worked with and were close to her. When I entered the competition law world, Professor Korah was no longer as active as she used to. However, her mark and contributions to the discipline were impossible to miss. She had greatly contributed to shaping the law and institutions I was discovering in the mid-2000s.
Professor Korah’s work on, inter alia, vertical restraints and technology transfer agreements was so foundational that there was simply no way around it. To this day, I still find interesting stuff in her articles. It is not unusual that I realise that something that I believed was a novel insight was already there, black on white, eloquently put.
If there is something I would highlight about Professor Korah’s legacy, is that how passionate she was about research in general and competition law in particular. The first memory that comes to mind is that of her sitting in the first row of a seminar room at UCL, well into her 80s, willing to learn from younger scholars, and keen to improve their work. May she rest in peace.
Chillin'Competition 
My memories of Val go back to the late 1970s when trying to teach the “Law of Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices” to BCL students. Her work was literally seminal. In those pre-Whish days, there was nothing to guide students except her work. She was a pioneer in the serious study of competition law, especially in her embrace of economics, and deep interest in comparative anti-trust law, and this never flagged. She was a stern critic of the Commission or OFT/CMA if they got things wrong, in her eyes. As her external examiner at UCL I saw at first hand her passionate concern for her students, and in enforcing tough deadlines! A lot of us will also remember her many acts of personal kindness as well. She left her mark.
Thomas Sharpe
8 August 2023 at 4:17 pm
I had the privilege of having her as a teacher back in 1999-2000 at Fordham University School of Law and she gave me her invaluable guidance and advice when I wrote a paper on exclusive licensing and competition law, which was later on published in the USA. She was an excellent professor, very meticulous, tough but always fair and kind. She was the kind of teacher that it is increasingly missing in some EU universities.
Sergio Baches Opi
8 August 2023 at 7:03 pm
https://lnkd.in/eUM7UJeD
An excellent critical thinker and delightful English eccentric has passed. Many memories testify to her sharp thinking, and her thoughtful mentoring. She would withhold neither criticism not praise, but always with warmth. I remember her asking me to work on a paper on trade secret licensing, in her office. After some time discussing and drafting she would ask me to find a bottle of wine in her cupboard. And there between the floral dresses and old papers, I would find a collection of red wine and cookies, both aging to near perfection (well ..), which we would then enjoy together while continuing to work, and listening to her stories of India – of long treks in the mountains to visit hidden caves covered with frescos of the Buddha. other memories are of her walking up to the dais at a conference, with her shopping bag-on-wheels trailing behind her filled with papers and God-knows-what. She was unconcerned with vanities. Since I moved to Hampstead I would meet her occasionally on the way to a swim. Old age was not kind to her fine mind, but I will always remember her as one of the foremost teachers of competition law and policy, and a lovely, quirky, personality. May the light perpetual shine upon her.https://lnkd.in/eUM7UJeD
Maurits Dolmans
9 August 2023 at 2:29 am
Sad news indeed. Already in the seventies Valentine was pleading for a more economic approach to competition law enforcement and was complaining that what was then known as DG 4 was populated almost exclusively with lawyers. She has extensively written about many competition law subjects but what I particularly remember are her books on the successive versions of the technology transfer block exemptions which are a must-read for anybody interested in the history of EU competition law on the licensing of IP rights.
Jean-Francois Bellis
9 August 2023 at 5:25 pm