Professor Panos Koutrakos was national rapporteur for the UK at the FIDE (Fédération internationale pour le droit européen) 2018 conference in Estoril, Portugal on 23-26 May 2018.

Professor Koutrakos’s report was on the external dimension of EU policies and covered issues of international treaty-making, trade and protection of investments, and the area of freedom, security and justice (the report may be found here).

The biannual FIDE conference is the biggest EU law conference and brings together more than 500 academics, practitioners, and judges.

This one day conference is organised by the prestigious Global Competition Law Center (GCLC) of the College of Europe and takes place on 21 June in Brussels.

Ronit Kreisberger will be a panel member discussing “The Rise of Private Competition Law Enforcement: benefits, costs and future prospects” with a presentation on the achievements and challenges of private enforcement in the United Kingdom.

The conference aims to offer an overview of the journey taken by key areas of EU competition policy over the past decades, and to then focus on three topics of particular relevance to today’s application of EU competition law, namely the interactions between competition law and intellectual property, the sharing of public enforcement between the EU and national levels, and the development of private enforcement and associated challenges. The event will conclude with a lecture by Mario Siragusa, followed by a Q&A session revolving around his practice and experience.

The Global Competition Law Centre (GCLC) of the College of Europe aims at promoting cutting-edge research in competition law and economics. Since its inception in January 2004, the GCLC has gained credentials as a high level discussion forum for academics, practitioners, and enforcement officers in the competition field across the world.

For further information click here.

See programme.

 

Anneli Howard is one of the four “heavyweights from law and politics” being brought together on Thursday 7th June, for a contentious debate on Brexit and the future of the City’s talent.  The debaters will argue the motion “The first casualty of Brexit will be City talent!”

 

Arguing FOR the motion:

Kenneth Clarke QC MP, Member of Parliament for Rushcliffe and former Lord Chancellor

Anneli Howard, Barrister, Monckton Chambers

 

Arguing AGAINST the motion:

Michael Howard, Former leader of the Conservative party

Francis Hoar, Barrister, Field Court Chambers

 

The debate is being chaired by Axel Threlfall, Editor at Large, Reuters.

The Legal Debates are a series of evening events for key partners of Thomson Reuters and key customers of legal solutions.

This year’s The Lawyer General Counsel Strategy Summit is being held at the Asia Gardens Hotel in Alicante, Spain on 16 – 18 May.

Monckton Chambers continues to support this important annual event, which is organised by The Lawyer magazine and is a forum for many of the UK and Europe’s most influential General Counsel to discuss the strategic and legal issues facing business leaders. The summit will bring together a host of external professionals including lawyers, economists and regulators, as well as those involved in senior decision-making at some of the world’s leading businesses.

Gerry Facenna QC is one of the leading practitioners selected to shape this “must-attend event” for GCs. He will be hosting a roundtable on the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which comes into effect shortly after the event on 25 May 2018. Entitled “GDPR – a continuous process, not a destination” the session will focus on the data protection issues facing businesses in the new regulatory landscape, including ownership of GDPR within corporate structures, demonstrating accountability and regulatory compliance, and benefits for business in better control of data.

Gerry Facenna QC is well placed to chair this topic, having been involved in many of the landmark cases that have shaped UK and EU data protection laws.

Monckton Chambers is a leading set in the area of data protection and information rights. Our unique combination of market-leading expertise in information rights, EU law, telecoms and regulatory litigation will all be mobilised to assist our clients when the new regulatory landscape under the GDPR comes into effect.

The seventh annual Sir Jeremy Lever lecture was held on Friday 23rd February, to celebrate the career of Sir Jeremy Lever KCMG, QC, a pioneer of both the practice and academic study of competition law in Europe.

The lecture titled “Mutual recognition and individual rights: the golden mean between blind trust and inadequate trust” was given by Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston QC and chaired by Philip Moser QC.

The event was followed by a celebratory dinner at All Souls College.

On 24 January 2018 the CCBE is organising a Side Event during the Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on: ‘Threatened Lawyers: the end of the Rule of Law in Europe?’ The Side Event is intended to draw attention to the proposed PACE Recommendation to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for a European Convention on the Profession of Lawyer. The proposal, which was adopted unanimously in December by the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of PACE, will be voted on by the whole Assembly immediately after the Side Meeting. Piers Gardner will be one of the speakers, explaining why a binding Convention with an effective enforcement machinery, would be a positive step for the rule of law.

The proposed Convention has the strong support of all six of the UK’s Bar Councils and Law Societies which participate in the CCBE, together with the national Bars and Law Societies of 44 other States, together representing one million lawyers. Piers Gardner is the UK member of the CCBE’s Permanent Delegation to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Monckton Chambers and Des Voeux Chambers held a joint symposium on 13th September entitled “Mind The Gap: Valuable lessons from the EU and UK for Competition Litigation in Hong Kong” featuring Tim Ward QC, Philip Moser QC, Paul Harris QC, and George Peretz QC from Monckton and Catrina Lam, John Hui, Connie Lee, Kelvin Kwok, Jonathan YH Chan, and Cherry Xu from DVC. The keynote speaker was Stephen Ryan of the Hong Kong Competition Commission.

The event was held at HKUST Business School, Hong Kong Club Building, Hong Kong and attended by members of the Hong Kong legal and business communities and the Hong Kong Competition Commission.