The Hungarian Competition Authority (GVH) and the OECD-GVH Regional Centre for Competition in Budapest (Hungary) (“RCC”) will hold their next seminar on European competition law for national judges on 19-20-21 February 2015 in Budapest, Hungary.

The seminar will receive funding from the European Union.

The February 2015 competition law seminar will provide judges with an opportunity to explore, in the proven setting of the RCC judges seminars, in greater depth the economic principles underlying competition cases, the methods used by economists, and their application in cases before national courts.  The seminar will focus in particular on the economics of abuse of dominance cases, distribution restraints (such as restrictions on internet sales), and claims for damages.  The goal of the seminar is to make judges more familiar with economic concepts, to be more confident when presented with economic based arguments, and to communicate more effectively with economic court experts and economic expert witnesses.

The seminar will emphasise both aspects – “competition economics” and “for judges.” Thus, we are not aiming to offer a series of lectures on text book microeconomics.  Rather, we want to discuss concepts of competition economics as they are relevant for the work of judges and focus on methods used by economists as they can be relevant in cases before national courts.  Short exercises will be included to illustrate the application of economic principles and methods in hypothetical cases. By putting competition economics in the context of case examples and case studies, we want to ensure that the topic is addressed from a judicial perspective and accessible for judges.

Founded by the Training of National Judges Programme of the European Union