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When I tell my friends that I’m studying competition law, they always ask: what’s that? Is it about gambling? I admit, it’s a vague name for a very interesting area of law.

Last year, during my conversion course, I studied a bit of competition law in our EU model. In particular, we learned about the EU Treaty that forms the detailed basis of EU law: the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

Within the TFEU there are two main articles to consider. Competition law is about making sure that companies and undertakings can produce, manufacture and distribute their goods in a fair way across countries that are in the EU. So, Article 101 prohibits trade practices between EU countries that can be seen to prevent, restrict or distort competition.

To determine the fairest way of doing business, certain restrictions to competition aren’t allowed. For example, companies can’t collude (explicitly or tacitly) to fix prices at supra competitive levels. Without these regulations, consumers may overpay for goods in markets where competitive pressures (eg, price wars) have been removed through anti-competitive practices. Under these regulations, companies are also not permitted to reach agreements that enable them to create artificial monopolies (eg, where it’s agreed that one company will have exclusivity over the market in parts of the EU, meaning they take all of the sales in that area). This also reduces competition and may  ultimately harm consumers through higher prices and less choice. So, competition law is about making sure the consumer has a fair and reasonable choice of goods and that they’re not being forced to buy one brand of goods at an artificially high price.

The other article, Article 102, stipulates that if a company is dominant it can’t abuse this position. For example, if one company manufactures 90% of skateboards in the UK, it can’t use its position to impose unfair trading conditions. For instance, the dominant company can’t say that it’ll only give its goods to a shop that also buys another product from them, or that it’ll stop buying other products from another manufacturer. This allows other smaller companies to continue doing business without losing out to a larger counterpart.

So, why’s this interesting? It’s interesting to me because it affects the world all around us. Without competition law working in the background, we could be paying £10 for a banana or we could be only buying Apple products from a technology shop. It works behind the scenes to ensure we (ie, the consumers) have a fair choice in the shops. It’s also something so many of us are unaware of.

Another reason I enjoy studying this area of law, is because it’s always evolving. With the UK leaving the EU, it means that we now have a new piece of legislation to learn. It’s very similar to that of Articles 101 and 102, but it’s been written into UK law and there are certain elements that, of course, change because of this. It’s intellectually challenging to know which law to use and to determine the differences between the two.

I chose competition law as my Legal Practice Course elective this year, and I’m loving it. I’d say it’s a smaller class than some big modules like corporate law, but competition lawyers are in big demand now, so I’d certainly recommend taking a look at it.   

If you want to learn more about this exciting practice area, make sure to check out this Practice Area Profile with Danica Barley, senior associate at Ashurst LLP.