The Priority Setting Project: rethinking EU and national competition law enforcement

Dr Or Brook, School of Law, Faculty of Social Sciences

Responsive Mode Impact Fund

The Priority Setting Project brings together academics and stakeholders from 28 competition authorities to discuss their priority-setting practices and offer policy recommendations for EU and national competition laws reform.

Competition law enforcement is one of the defining features of markets: if competition is distorted, national and European economies will not deliver on their full potential. Effective enforcement contributes to an efficient allocation of society's scarce resources, innovation, lower prices, higher quality and productivity. For these reasons, the recent EU Directive 2019/1 requires Member States to enhance their competition authorities’ priority-setting powers.

Despite the vital importance of priority-setting, EU and national laws, decision-makers and academics have mostly overlooked the theory, principles and practices that guide – or should guide - the enforcement priorities.

This project aims to fills this gap by offering: a workshop to disseminate and critically discuss with academics and competition authorities the preliminary findings of the underpinning qualitative research undertaken by the applicant and academic partner; policy-report and 8 training seminars for members of competition authorities to guide the implementation of the Directive and a reform at national and international levels; building a network and strengthening on-going collaboration with competition authorities; exploring pathways to impact for future research funding.

Dr Or Brook can be contacted by email: O.Brook@leeds.ac.uk