A statistical exercize: ask a young competition lawyer how he is doing. In 9 out of 10 cases, with a sound of desperation, he will tell you he is  horrendously busy, that his job is exhausting, and that life is tough and stressful.

By contrast, you will almost never hear someone say that he’s happy, that he loves his job, and that he is doing what he had always dreamt of.

I find this very sad.

As a kid, I remember hearing my dad saying how fantastic his job was. This was really instrumental in pushing me to study hard and, more recently, in deciding me to choose academia over private practice.

Over the past years, my students have often told me that they were discouraged from working as a competition lawyer because of the perception most young professionals did not look happy, but tired and busy.

So friends, readers, let’s just try to sound a little more happy (and if you are not, you should certainly do something else).

(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)

With all the fuzz about the Greek financial tragedy, I cannot help but drawing comparisons with what happened last year in  the private sector. The most glaring similarities are:

• Not unlike the subprime crisis, this crisis stems from problems of asymetrical information and moral hazard, with Greece lying on the real status of its finances, and fooling its European Monetary Union partners;
• We here have a country that has become “too big too fail“, and Member States have to rescue it;
• Massive State aids are now provided. Those aids fall short of the prohibition of the TFEU. Yet, like aids granted last year to banks, this rescue scheme distorts competition between disciplined and careless governments. Of course, some may argue that Europe is not an area where Member States compete against each other,  but where countries  act jointly, in a spirit of solidarity. Well, as sad as this may sound, this is plain untrue. Each Member State individually defines its  budget seeking to maximize domestic wealth. In addition, the competence over the main economic  issues lies at the national level (social security, pensions, military, research and education, etc.);
• What’s missing in  the European Monetary Union is a credible regulatory framework, with tough enforcement mechanisms.

Another puzzling thing:  some of you may have heard that regionalism in on the rise in Belgium. A handful of influential Dutch-speaking politicians – who come from the wealthy northern part of Belgium –  no longer want to subsidize the poor, French-speaking southern region. Now here’s something which puzzles me: how can those guys can reconcile this with the billions of € they are ready to lend to Greece (and more generally with their alleged pledge to build a stronger Europe)?

I proved most of my colleagues wrong. I have been working for 10 days on a Mac, as a temporary replacement for my good old PC.  Contrary to what they predicted, I did not fall in love with the Apple ecosystem. While using Apple’s OS and, more generally, this computer, I felt  like playing with a toy.  In addition, the protocols to launch apps and softwares are really counterintuitive.

So a piece of – personal – advice for lawyers in general, whose primary occupation is emailing and drafting documents: if you don’t care for design, but primarily for price, then don’t  succumb to this irrational, politically correct, Apple frenzy.

And now two questions to competition lawyers. Here in Belgium, most retailers charge similar prices for Apple products. Is the situation the same in other Member States? If so, may the source of this price rigidity hinge on some sort of RPM-like system?

Finally, check this out: DG COMP’s blockbuster on competition policy and the consumer. The computer brand used in the movie is a most unfortunate coincidence. Borrowing to the semantics of the movie industry, I’d be tempted to talk here of a Commission “exhibition” bias (thanks to Pierre Sabbadini for the pointer)…

PS: Thanks to Julie Clarke for the kind words on the computer crash.

PS2: I found the above picture just hilarious, and could not resist posting it.

PS3: The bias is a favourable one. In its past decisional activities, the Commission has seemed particularly friendly to Apple and particularly unfriendly to other software/computer developpers. Full disclosure: in my previous life as a practitioner, I have done a bit of work for a rival software developper.

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.

This is what happened to my computer tonight … The blue screen of death, as most IT geeks name it… Very scary…

Julien de Beys (invited lecturer at the University of Louvain) has posted here a freely downloadable version of his Phd on State aid and General Interest (in French). The good, refreshing thing about this work is that it takes a rather original perspective on State aid. Unlike most other authors, who start from the idea that State aid is genuinely distortive, this research starts from the other side, and seems to argue that State aid is generally necessary to ensure general interest. Obviously, hardcore free-marketers, who believe that the accumulation of egoistic self-interest is the sole drivers of collectively optimal outcomes, will find this work particularly controversial. I paste hereafter the abstract, and wish to congratulate the author for his impressive piece of work.

The present thesis analyses the State aid control carried out by the European Commission as regards the concept of general interest. In doing so, this research contributes, on one hand, to situate the current position of this concept within EU law, as well as, on the other, it underlines the profound developments this control inflicts on the Member States’ economic intervention policies. Any person interested in State aid law knows that, in one way or another, State aid is deemed compatible with the single market because it benefits to society, namely because it allows the realisation of general interest objectives. Consequently, if general interest is at stake, what are the legal bases used in order to express it? What are the references of the Commission and how does it nourish its reflection? How come that the European Parliament and the Council appear to be apart? How are national interest and European interest articulated? In addition, Member States today have to justify to what extent their economic interventions are preferable to the free market and put them in the prolongation of the objectives sought at the European level. The necessity of this national policies’ orientation is not questioned. However, Member States should collectively find at European level the room for manoeuvre that they individually lose at national level. The first part of the thesis analyses the scope of State aid control. Why a general ban of State aid? Why are certain exemptions accepted? The second part describes the method by which certain general interest objectives are recognised. It specifies that these objectives are also “configured”, according to an original concept identified by the author. The third part shows that State aid control constitutes a national interest control at the service of the European policies. An important exception to this statement is however examined: the Member States’ competence to determine, set up and finance their public services.

(Image possibly subject to copyrights: source here)

I am currently enrolled in a great seminar on “Antitrust, Technology and Innovation” taught by Prof. Philip Malone at Harvard Law School.  As part of the requirements of the seminar, everyone attending it is supposed to write several posts on an internal blog only accessible to the rest of the class. Given that my classmates are a truly brilliant group of students, the discussions held in the blog have been extremely interesting. Accordingly, Nicolas and I thought that it would be very useful, particularly for our student-readers, to have access to these discussions and to be able to contribute with their own views.

Therefore, in the coming weeks, and in parallel with ordinary posting activity, we will be publishing here some of the posts written by HLS students on a number of selected issues, as well as follow-up comments by other members of the class.

Prof. Malone has kindly allowed us to include a reference to his terrific syllabus (really a great source of information) so that anyone interested will be able to better follow the discussions.

For all antitrust geeks: read the American Antitrust Institute 1 April column (pasted in full below). Simply hilarious.