Judicial Review of Competition Law Enforcement in the EU Member States and the UK
Judges may recall that the Association has cooperated with the pan EU/UK team and their work led by Or Brook and Barry Rodger; they and other members of the team were with us in Brussels for one of our meetings. They have now published the promised book, and launched a new website that introduces the project. The site also includes datasets with coded judgments across jurisdictions, graphs, and figures, making it a useful resource for those in the field.
They are extremely grateful for the Association's support throughout this project and wanted to thank us again. If you or colleague competition law judges or indeed some of your contacts might be interested, here are the links:
University of Turin – COMP.EU.TER - materials
The Association offered its support and encouragement for this project which has been being funded by the European Commission as a two years project. Towards the end of 2023 there was an international final conference with high-profile international speakers and addressed mainly to an audience of national judges from several Member States; there is also a webpage and the LinkedIn page of the project, where the recordings of the seminars and more than 20 short videos on competition law issues have been uploaded so far. All the info, videos etc. are available here and here.
Valuable materials from ERA
ERA has now finalised a large-scale project entitled “Provision of training programme to national judges in EU Competition law” that they have been implementing with the cooperation of the national judicial training institutes and with the support of AECLJ and EJTN on behalf of the European Commission since 2018. This was a follow-up of the Study on judges’ training needs in the field of competition law prepared for the Commission by ERA, EJTN and Ecorys in 2016. The Association worked with ERA on that study and we have often provided speakers for which and for whom they have been grateful. Within the framework of the project, ERA organised 24 training events attended by a total of 639 judges from 25 EU Member States. The website of the project is a valuable source of training materials and e-presentations from these events available in 20 different languages: Training for National Judges in EU Competition Law (judicialtraining.eu) Do feel free to make use of this large data base of materials.
Training of National Judges in EU Competition Law (SMP-COMP-2023-JUDG)
The European Commission has published its call for proposals for training national judges in EU competition law. The objective of this call for proposals is to co-finance projects aiming to train national judges in the context of enforcing European competition rules. This includes public and private enforcement of both the Antitrust rules and the State aid rules, thereby increasing the knowledge and know-how of national judges. The final aim is to ensure a coherent and consistent application of EU competition law by national courts. These objectives can best be achieved through projects which specifically focus on the role of national judges in the application of EU competition law, their particular needs and work environments and pre-existing training and knowledge.
Projects should address at least one of the thematic priorities listed below but may address more than one. Under each priority listed below applicants are invited to choose a number of topics at least equal to a certain minimum.
- Priority 1: Trainings on the application of Articles 101 and 102 TFEU and relevant secondary law.
- Priority 2: Trainings focusing on procedural safeguards and the effective enforcement of EU competition law.
- Priority 3: Trainings focusing on national laws implementing Directive 2014/104 on antitrust damages actions.
- Priority 4: Trainings focusing on underlying economic principles of competition law.
- Priority 5: Trainings focusing on the application of competition law in regulated industries (such as the energy, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, sectors) and digital markets.
- Priority 6: Training on State Aid and the enforcement role of national courts.
For further information, please visit the following page: Calls for proposals grants (europa.eu)
The deadline for applications is 06 March 2024
Request to national judges regarding the transmission of judgments pursuant to article 15 (2) of Regulation 1/2003
In discussions between the judges and staff at DG Comp, there has been an emphasis on practical implementation of this provision so that judges across Europe can appreciate how competition law is being interpreted and applied in other national jurisdictions facing the same or similar issues.
In co-operation with DG Comp, there a request has been sent to national judiciaries for information relevant to the collection of judgments. Colleagues in DG Comp, as well as the AECLJ Secretariat, are grateful to those in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and from the UK who have collected data and responded.
More details, and a copy of the questionnaire can be obtained by national judges from aeclj@catribunal.org.uk.
The launch of GAM - Giurisprudenza Antitrust Milanese
This a database collecting the judgements of the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal of Milan, Italy, on private antitrust enforcement. It has been edited by Jacopo Alberti and Filippo Croci with support from the Jean Monnet Chair of Professor Massimo Condinanzi and the endorsement of the President of this Association, Professor Marina Tavassi who was the first lady to become President of the Court of Appeal of Milan.
The database, available here[http://gam.eurojus.it/en/], currently includes judgments rendered between 2013 and 2018; it will soon be updated to bring them up to 2019.
In addition to the classic search criteria, the database includes a search mask that allows the user to filter the judgments on individual topics. While judgments are currently available only in Italian, the search form (included the one by topics) is available also in English. This means that also non-Italian speaker can search and find relevant judgments, so as to focus the translation only on what really matters for their purposes.
Contacts in each national judiciary
At the annual conference in Copenhagen, it was suggested that the AECLJ seeks to establish a network of first points of contact; these would be available to fellow competition law judges when they wished to ask a question concerning the application of competition law in another State. The Association’s Secretariat, on aeclj@catribunal.org.uk, provides a contact for the United Kingdom and it is contacting judges in other States with a view to nominations. The Association’s Secretariat, on aeclj@catribunal.org.uk, provides an initial contact point and it is contacting judges in other States with a view to volunteers. The following judges have already volunteered:
Austria: Iris Ingemarsson, the Competition Tribunal, Vienna
Belgium: Anne-Marie Witters - President, Market Court, Brussels
Bulgaria: Mira Raycheva, Supreme Court
Croatia: Igor Periša, Civil Department of the Supreme Court
Cyprus: Angelos David, Supreme Court of Cyprus
Czech Republic: Eva Bučková, District Court in Zlín
Denmark: Mads Bundgaard Larsen – President, Maritime & Commercial Court, Copenhagen
Estonia: Villem Lapimaa – Chairman, Circuit Court, Tallinn
Finland: Jussi Karttunen - President, the Market Court, Helsinki
France: Sylvaine Poillot-Peruzzetto - Court of Cassation, Paris
Germany: Wolfgang Kirchhoff - President, Cartel Chamber, Federal Court of Justice, Karlsruhe
Greece: Iannis Symplis - Council of State, Athens
Hungary: Gábor Remes - Administrative Department of the Curia of Hungary
Ireland: Max Barrett, High Court
Italy: Silvia Giani - President of the Enterprise Specialized Section of the Tribunal of Milan
Latvia: Dzintra Amerika - Supreme Court, Department of Administrative Cases
Lithuania: Skirgailė Žalimienė - Supreme Administrative Court
Luxembourg: Anick Wolff - District Court of Luxembourg
Malta: Ian Spiteri Bailey - High Court, Valetta
The Netherlands: Jaap de Wildt - Supreme Administrative Court for Trade and Industry, The Hague
Norway: Karin Fløistad - Chair, Norwegian Competition Tribunal, Bergen
Poland: Ewa Stefańska - Supreme Court, Warsaw
Portugal: Marta Borges Campos - Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court, Santarém
Romania: Diana Elena Talamugă, Supreme Court, Bucharest
Slovak Republic: Andrea Moravčíková - Supreme Court, Bratislava
Slovenia: Petra Hočevar - Administrative Court, Ljubljana
Spain: Mercedes Pedraz Calvo - La Audencia Nacional, Madrid
Sweden: Daniel Severinsson - Patent and Market Court, Stockholm District Court
Switzerland: Pascal Richard - Federal Administrative Court, division II
United Kingdom: Peter Roth - Chairman, Competition Appeal Tribunal, London
Study on judges’ training needs
In 2016, DG Comp published the Study on judges’ training needs in the field of European competition law - Final report – a copy of which is accessible on the Internet:
http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/reports/kd0416407e