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International Competition Law & Policy (LLM)
Course Descriptions
Advanced Competition Law
Course code: LAW5038
Course Co-ordinator: Professor Mark Furse
This course builds on concepts studied in International Competition Law I, which is a prerequisite for this course, unless the applicant can demonstrate significant prior experience of Competition Law, either via academic study, or via practice. In particular the course focuses on specific anti-competitive practices, both collaborative and unilateral, and explores too the relationship between Competition Law and Intellectual Property Law, as well as Competition Law and new technologies. The UK system is introduced and explored alongside those of the EU and US. In essence this course allows us to play with some of the concepts introduced in Competition Law: Substance and Enforcement in a much more complex, and interesting, way.
Recommended Reading –
- Recurring Issues in Antitrust Enforcement: A Symposium in Honor of Professor John J. Flynn Monopolization in the New Economy, Comments *741 MICROSOFT AND TRINKO: A TALE OF TWO COURTS, Spencer Weber Waller (2006 Utah L. Rev. 741)
- Jared A. Berry, Anti-Monopoly Law in China: A Socialist Market Economy Wrestles with its Antitrust Regime
Competition Law: Substance and Enforcement
Course code: LAW5037
Course Co-ordinator: Professor Rosa Greaves
The primary focus of this course will be on the control of multi-lateral and unilateral anti-competitive conduct. The course will focus on the operation of the EU Competition Law regime, based on articles arts 101 and 102 of the TFEU, and procedural and implementing legislation. The course will also consider the main provisions of American Antitrust Law, as enshrined in ss 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act 1890, and s 5 of the FTCA. In both cases the outline of the institutional processes, and the relationship between public and private enforcement will be considered.
The course will also consider the context within which the law operates, focussing on the relevant economic principles and theories, as well as the tensions in the economics debate, underpinning the application of the law.
The course does not deal with merger control, which is a large and complex area of law, and which is dealt with separately in the International Merger Control course.
Recommended Reading –
- Marco-Colino, S Competition Law of the EU and UK, 7th edn, Oxford University Press, 2011
Intellectual Property and the Market
Course code: LAW5034
Course Co-ordinator: Dr Andreas Rahmatian
The field of Intellectual Property Law is of growing contemporary importance. As well as dealing with the protection of literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, it is also concerned with the commercially important protection of rights in inventions, trade marks and computer programs. Intellectual Property Law and the Market aims to provide an introduction to substantive Intellectual Property Law in a European and international context and to give an overview of the interaction between intellectual property rights and markets. In particular, the effect of the EU free movement of goods rules and the EU Competition Law regime on the exercise of Intellectual Property Law will be examined.
Recommended Reading –
- Helen Norman, Intellectual Property Law, Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 3-27
International Merger Control
Course code: LAW5046
Course Co-ordinator: Professor Mark Furse
This course focuses on merger control in the EU US, UK and one other regime which will be dealt with in less detail (usually China). It deals with the largest commercial transactions, and analyses the regulatory framework within which the competition elements of that transaction are controlled by the law. This is an area of increasing importance, with an expanding number of countries maintaining some form of merger control, and with the very largest of transactions often being subject to scrutiny by several regimes simultaneously. No prior knowledge of merger control, or of competition law, is necessary in order to take this course.
Recommended Reading –
- William J. Baer, Reflections on Twenty Years of Merger Enforcement Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, 65 Antitrust L.J. 825 1996-1997