Pinar Akman, The Concept of Abuse in EU Competition Law: Law and Economic Approaches, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012, 376 pp, hb £60.00.
| Published date | 01 March 2013 |
| Date | 01 March 2013 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2230.12019 |
| Author | Pablo Ibáñez Colomo |
Paterson’s discussion of judicial appointments is also interesting and thought-
ful. He discusses how merit is culturally defined. His discussion of the 50:50
balance between lay and legal members of the Judicial Appointments Board for
Scotland is also interesting.
The high-point of the lectures is the detailed discussion of judicial decision
making in the House of Lords, of which Paterson’s interviews with Law Lords
enable him to provide a wonderfully detailed description. The discussion of how
cases were allocated to particular Law Lords is especially interesting, as is the fact
that this was not explained to Law Lords and became a source of concern to
some. The discussion of the permission stage and strategies of judicial advocacy
whereby Law Lords sought to influence each other’s views are fascinating. Given
such rich information it is a shame Paterson includes in this section quite frankly
amateurish social science, in the form of ‘Wordles’ that graphically display
frequencies of the words in each of the Belmarsh speeches (190). Whilst good
social science tests hypothesis which can be falsified, these Wordles (rather like
reading tea-leaves) are of such open texture that viewers can read in whatever
preconceptions they may have.
Overall, these are an interesting set of lectures. The first two contain inter-
esting narratives that would perhaps advance the understanding of the ‘Common
people of this Country’ – for whose benefit Paterson notes the Hamlyn Lectures
were founded (1). But they add little to the existing literatures. The final lecture
in which Paterson reports on the series of interviews he conducted with Law
Lords now and 30 years previously is truly fascinating and provides original and
important insight into the process of decision making in the judicial House of
Lords.
Michael Blackwell*
Pinar Akman,The Concept of Abuse in EU Competition Law: Law and
Economic Approaches, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012, 376 pp, hb £60.00.
The boundaries of Article 102 TFEU, which deals with abuses by dominant
firms, are notoriously unclear. The current impenetrability of the relevant case
law provides fertile ground for academic research. It is difficult to avoid the
impression that much needs to be done in terms of clarification, systematising,
and streamlining of the elusive notion of abuse as spelled out by EU courts. The
attempts of the European Commission to give some predictability to its enforce-
ment activity, which led to the adoption of a ‘Guidance Paper’ in 2008, together
with the ever-growing reliance on economic analysis in the field of competition
law, have also contributed to the growing interest of scholars in the provision.
Pinar Akman’s book stands out as one of the most original contributions to
the field published in recent years. It is not aimed at providing the sort of
*Non-practising solicitor. London School of Economics & Political Science.
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© 2013 The Authors. The Modern Law Review © 2013 The Modern Law Review Limited. 421
(2013) 76(2) MLR 419–428
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