Competition Lab for Judges - An Overview of Competition Law for Judicial Review

Programme(s): Single Market Programme (SMP)

Project ID: 101183648

Topic(s): SMP-COMP-2023-JUDG

Type of action: SMP Project Grants

Objective:
The project is promoted by the OECD-GVH Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest (Hungary) (OECD-GVH RCC) and has two main overall aims. The first one is to boost national judges’ understanding of the analytical framework of different business practices under competition law, as well as key economic and legal concepts that underline competition law enforcement. The second is to facilitate the creation of a growing community of national judges of member states of the EU that can share experiences and information to contribute to a stronger and more uniform application of EU competition law. It consists of two main elements: four 2-day seminars on European Competition Law for National Judges in 2024-2026 to strengthen knowledge and understanding of competition issues and the opening of several digital tools to the participants to enhance the creation of a community of national judges in the EU that can apply competition law in a more uniform way. After a deep analysis of case law of National and European judgements that review administrative decisions, 4 main topics have been identified to be covered on each one of our seminars. Each seminar focuses on a different area of competition law enforcement, covering some of the most controversial topics that deserve deep reflection relevant for judicial review of competition decisions. The topics are the following: cartels, cooperation agreements between competitors, abuse of dominance, vertical agreements and vertical restraints. The seminars build on the 19-year expertise of the OECD-GVH Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest (Hungary) in capacity building on competition and on training for judges. As in the RCC practice, the speakers will be judges and legal clerks from European courts, selected competition experts from the academia, international organisations or leading law and consultancy firms, or experienced lawyers and economists from European competition authorities.