With the introduction of our two new courses on competition law, International Antitrust Litigation and Not Cartels in September, City will have the largest suite of competition courses on offer in Europe.

Students who choose four out of the seven courses and take their dissertation in competition law can receive an LLM in International Competition Law.

City Law School is delighted to announce that it will be launching two new competition law courses in academic year 2008/2009.

Firstly, International Antitrust Litigation
This course focusses on the fast developing area of competition law litigation. Looking at both US and EU procedures, EU proposals for reform, and the prospect of Member State competition for the "damages business". A number of practictioners from leading plaintiff and defendant firms will also be teaching on the course.

Secondly, Not Cartels-Permitted Co-operative Transactions. Competition Law is often see as a "don't do" subject, where you tell the client what he cannot do. This course looks at the other side of competition law-what in fact business is permitted to do, whether it be joint ventures, distribution arrangements or complex bilateral commercial transactions.

Both these courses are unique and add significantly to our existing portfolio of 5 Antitrust/Competition Law courses. These are:
General Competition Law
International Cartels
State, Competition & Regulation
Mergers
Comparative Antitrust.

Professor Alan Riley
Director LLM Programme
City Law School
City University, London.
Electronic Mail: alan.riley.1@city.ac.uk

Re the increase in number of competition law courses - it is indeed worth noting that, the course curriculum and the number of courses under the umbrella of EU Competition law would not help any prospective or existing student :

Why?

1. The market for jobs in EU Competition law is minuscule and very specialized - hence the only thing counts is actual competition experience gained during your competition law seat during training contract. And even the 'arranged' exposure to competition law via internships or written papers , would qualify your CV to be marked for binning immediately , because the market only values on the job transactional experience.

Steer clear of academic courses, if you are thinking of practicing EU competition law.

2. The City Uni, EU law courses are in its infancy and are in a heavily experimental phase, and the 'arranged exposure' - internships are marketing tactics to induce and tempt prospective students. PLS BE ADVISED OF LURING TACTICS

Dear "Truth",
We have corresponded before I note on this issue. Once again your complaint is that it is impossible to obtain any access into competition law practice. If you email me privately with a copy of your CV and a brief indication of where you want to practice I would be happy to advise you on the way to proceed in the competition law field.

Competition law is not a "miniscule" field. The very nature of the law covering virtually all sectors of the economy gives it enormous reach. That is reinforced by the fact that in order to become a Member State of the European Union it is necessary to establish a functioning national competition agency, even of the 27 national agencies generate a considerable amount of work for the competition bar. That is reinforced by the operation of the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition (DG Comp). In 2007 DG Comp received 407 merger notifications. See the stats page on DG Comp's website at http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/mergers/statistics.pdf

That is an enormous amount of legal work. Not just for the law firms filing Form CO notifications, but also for all the opponents of the deal, who will go to the Commission, formally and informally to oppose all or part of the deal and argue for conditions to be imposed on the deal. This is one of the principal drivers of competition law practice, and why Brussels, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt (with obviously London and Brussels ahead) have significant numbers of competition lawyers-and why Europe has developed functioning continental wide antitrust bar with real depth.

A second new driver of "competition law" business is the discovery of illegal cartels. Learning from the United States, DG Comp has developed new techniques to bust international price fixing and market sharing arrangements. I drafted a Parliamentary Question for one MEP asking for the details from DG Comp as to the numbers of cartels under investigation by DG Comp. The answer was that approximately 70 cartels were then (in 2006) were under investigation. I understand from my Brussels contacts that the number is now around 100. Each cartel will usually have at least four or five members. With around 100 cartels, that is four or five hundred cases to keep lawyers very busy.

There are also other drivers of new practice. One is the potential reach of the Microsoft judgment which may well start a new round of antitrust litigation against dominant firms with intellectual property rights.

Also the cartel driver of antitrust practice is leading to the development of a new driver of competition: Damages actions. There is not much complexity in the allegation of price-fixing (although there is in calculation of damages), which makes it difficult for defendant members of a cartel to defend a damages action by victims who have been overcharged. However given the scale of the number of cartel cases that have been uncovered by the Commission (and that's before we add the cases discovered by the national agencies), each cartel could result in dozens of damages action in the national courts.

For all these reasons the market is not "miniscule" and is likely to grow significantly. Also of the four drivers mentioned, mergers, cartels, Article 82 and damages, only one of them-mergers is affected by recession, so in terms of being protected from the economic cycle antitrust practice is likely to have significant advantages over the next few years.

As for the internships. While no guarantees are on offer, law firms do not go to the trouble of agreeing terms for interns with the law school and arranging actually to pay the interns, plus additional office costs of providing them with business support services, unless they are at least interested in the opportunity of meeting bright and capable students who if they impress the law firm, may well be the recipients of jobs offer to in the future.

Finally, on the courses, we are offering the widest range of competition law courses in Europe. Two of the courses, International Cartels and International Antitrust Litigation are offered nowhere else. We have a wide range of distiguished academics including a core team Professor Philippa Watson from Essex Court Chambers, Mr Ioannis Kokkoris from the Office of Fair Trading and the distinguished academic and practitioner Mr Jeremy Scholes, who are all well versed in both the practice and theory of competition law. Also we regularly bring practitioners from both Brussels and London into our competition law seminars (During term one I am often found early on a Monday morning-all our competition classes are on a Monday- meeting practitioners from the eurostar, so we can discuss that days classes over coffee in St Pancras-before we walk down to Northampton Square for the first class of the day).

My overall view is that if you have got the capability, interest and enthusiasm the sky is the limit in the competition law field.

ALAN RILEY

Professor Alan Riley
Director LLM Programme
City Law School
City University, London
Electronic Mail: alan.riley.1@city.ac.uk

Is the city law school all that good for the BVC and why are they trying to change the name from the Inns of Court School of Law to the latter? Dont you think by changing the name, it is going to affect the hard won worldwide reputation of this famous law institution?. What will happen to Oxford, Cambridge, Yale,Havard etc if they change thier names. I urge the relevant authorities to give a second thought to this new name. Please keep the name - Inns of Court School of Law

You got it right BC Rich, these are marketing tactics to garner student admissions. Indeed City Uni has been trying very hard to keep up their reputation since the last few years.

At the outset Dr. Riley has responded in 817 words to the realistic assessment of competition law job market, while we have only used 167 words. It speaks volumes about what he is trying his utmost to market and sell its a complete defensive explanation of competition law job market dynamics.

We are talking here about prospects and realistic scenario of making good use of a LLM degree, opening further avenues, and not what drives competition law and what courses can potentially be churned out of exisisting competition law literature available by sub dividing them to generate portfolio of antitrust courses.

1. As expected there has been no explanation on why the law firms will actually value hands on transactional experience gained during competition seat during Training Contract rather than theoretical, PowerPoint based LLMs.

2. The faculty employed by this LLM programme is mainly composed of part time and on ad hoc basis to fill up the extra courses generated as an effort to increase portfolio of antitrust courses and then there is claim that they have widest offering. There is no dedicated faculty on a permanent basis to deliver LLM curriculum.

3. Though the Cartel work may considerably subside in the next 10 years due to heavy awareness and compliance programmes but it will be interesting to see future developments re the companies still being adventurous enough to cartelize, knowing fully well the repercussions and massive fines. The exisisting cartels case workload is due to old cases running since last 5 years and not the recent ones.

4. Re the internships these are again diversity and advertisement tactics employed by law firms to promote their practice and fulfill their diversity targets - and needless to say by the course director(s) to attach a bait of extra value to LLMs which may help boost the revenue of their law department to say the least.

5. Just for the sake of statistics, we would be obliged if the course director can be kind enough to shed light on the success of the past students (alumni) of this LLM programme being able to get openings in competition law departments of law firms?

It is advised for the good of all prospective entrants into LLMs, to realistically evaluate their decision of joining a programme, which will only deliver negative value. And unfortunately LLM degrees have become a business, and are being marketed and sold under the garb of honest and sincere advise by professors and directors sitting in cocoons of their cozy offices.

Dear "Truth",

You seem to be unaware of the fact that most of the partners in private practice who specialise in competition law in fact have LLMs (count the LLMs on law firm websites). The practice recommended by lawyers in both private practice and Universities is the same, get your law degree, get qualified, get an LLM and if possible spend some time in a major antitrust agency in order to build that mix of practical and academic knowledge in order to be an effective competition lawyer.

LLMs with a major focus on competition law help. They systematise, deepen and expand your knowledge of this area of law. A significant part of the package taking you on the way toward private practice.

As for cartels. The US DoJ started busting cartels deploying new techniques in 1993. There is no let up in the number of cartels they are busting to date. Currently there are 130 ongoing grand jury investigations into international cartels. Equally, DG Comp is busy busting cartels, see the press releases on DG Comp's websites as to dawn raids in cartel cases. These cases are live and not several years old.

In fact as DG Comp officials and private practice lawyers were saying at a conference on cartels I attended in Brussels last week, the profitability of price-fixing can be so great, there will always be firms willing to take the risk-it is inherent in capitalism.

Your fundamental point about "live transactional experience" misses the point. Yes, of course law firms want LTE. But with newly qualified lawyers and graduates, what they want is BOTH any experience you have got in a competition seat during a training contract (or equivalent in other jurisdictions) and the knowledge base gained from the LLM-plus preferably time in antitrust agency.

Again, it is factually inaccurate to say that "there is no dedicated faculty on a permanent basis to deliver (the) LLM curriculum". We have recruited and added several staff to do exactly that, and we are recruiting several more for that very purpose.

I repeat my earlier offer. I am happy for you to contact me by email privately, look at your CV and provide some career advice and direction.

ALAN RILEY

Professor Alan Riley
Director LLM Programme
City Law School
City University, London.
Electronic Mail:alan.riley.1@city.ac.uk

We thank Dr. Riley for all his timely replies. We also look forward to hear his response re the points (4) and (5) raised by us in our previous post. We believe they have not been left unanswered deliberately.

For ease of reference we will much appreciate if Dr. Riley could distill us his thoughts, on how this LLM has specifically helped any of his past or recent student (s) to open doors in a City or non-City based competition law practice?

Dr. Riley, could you please pinpoint for us, if this LLM has any full time faculty on permanent payroll (excluding yourself), exclusively dedicated for taught modules available under the largest suite of competition courses on offer in Europe

We hope all the members of this forum, perusing this information, are enabled to make an informed decision.

Dear "Truth",

I have already extensively replied to most of your questions.

For brevity, in addition to myself there are three other full time academics who have a specialism in antitrust law at City, two Senior Lecturers Mr Jeremy Scholes, and Mr Dan Wilsher and the Director of the Law School Professor Peter Kunzlik, who is writing a book on international competition law for Oxford University Press. In addition, we have Professor Philippa Watson who is course leader for Comparative Antitrust and State Competition Regulation and Mr Ioannis Kokkoris, from the Office of Fair Trading, who acts as our "in house" economist, and whose teaching is spread across a number of classes. Whatever way you cut it having 4 full timers and two part timers teaching and researching competition law in any law school in Europe is formidable.

As for "opening to the profession" you are really choosing the wrong law school and the wrong Professor to raise this issue with. I personally have extensive contacts in the profession and so do most of my colleagues. As a result we are able to really help hardworking LLM students with good scores and a positive attitude. This ranges from organising interviews for a dozen LLM students with a major plaintiff litigation firm (I understand that there are ongoing job negotiations); through to initial telephone interviews with major UK law firms) through to pointing some students in the direction of in-house opportunities (I understand a couple of the LLM class secured positions as a result of following those opportunities).

We are very career focussed at City. We run career planning sessions, the staff will look at CVs and covering letters and give advice on which law firms to appproach and I am personally always on the look out for opportunities for my students.

My essential view is that if you have good scores, are hardworking and have a positive attitude then an LLM in competition law is worth the investment. It helped my career, and that of my friends who are now in partners in private practice. The same is true today.

ALAN RILEY

Professor Alan Riley
City Law School
City University
London
Electronic Mail: alan.riley.1@city.ac.uk