EU Law Blog

We are back!

After a long break, we are back!

Many thanks to our patient readers for sticking with us.

Antitrust Fines, Due Process and the ECHR

Over at the highly recommended ECHR Blog, there's an excellent post on EU antitrust fines and ECHR fair trial rights.

The author of the post, Felix Ronkes Agerbeek, is an eminent lawyer, who works in the Commission's presitigious legal service, and who marshals his arguments very carefully.

He makes a telling point: The case law of the European Court of Human Rights on Article 6 of the ECHR is unclear and imprecise when it comes to transposing it to the Commission's antitrust procedure. He draws the following general conclusion:

"One thing is clear, though. The simple fact that Article 6[ECHR] applies does not prevent the adoption of sanctions by an administrative body. On the contrary, according to the case-law it is perfectly acceptable that certain sanctions are imposed by way of an administrative decision."

There's no doubt that he's right about that. But the procedure used by the Commission's DG Competition may need a few modifications all the same. For example, the European Court of Human Right's judgment in Dubus SA v. France may require a reorganization of that department in order to separate the investigative and adjudicative roles currently exercised by the same people. We'll see what the General Court makes of that judgment in the case pending before it in Case T-56/09 Saint Gobain Glass France and Others v. Commission.

For our post on the Dubus case see here.

And as a commentator pointed out on the ECHR Blog, the General Court's caselaw on ne bis in idem may need revisiting in the light of the European Court of Human Right's recent judgment in Sergey Zolotukhin v. Russia. As it happens, the Court of Justice itself has the opportunity to do just that and to align the EU case law with that of the European Court of Human Rights in the pending case C-17/10 Toshiba Coroporation and others v. v Úřad pro ochranu hospodářské soutěže. Again, we'll have to wait and see what happens.

We're very grateful to Mr. Ronkes Agerbeek for having started an interesting and worthwhile debate in blogosphere with such a thoughtful and interesting post.

ECJ Blog revamped, relauched

We're pleased to let you know that the ECJ Blog, another pioneer blog on EU law, has recently got a substantial facelift and has relaunched.

The new design looks good. Perhaps we should redesign our own... But there are only 24 hours in the day.

Pity, though, that the ECJ Blog does not link to others.

Blogging Break

Seasons greetings, Dear Readers.

We're taking a break and will be back with lots of fascinating posts early in the New Year.

Until then, have fun !

New Blog: "Adjudicating Europe"

Where have we been lately ?

A terrific new blog has been brought to our attention. It is called "Adjudicating Europe".

You can access it here.

It is a very lively, well written, informative blog.

We really liked their hit charts of judgments and Advocate generals' opinions here.

Read this welcome new blog now and read it regularly.

And that reminds us that we should sort out and update our "blogroll" one of these days. Oh, so much to do, so little time to do it in .....

Blogging break

We'll be taking a break from blogging for a couple of weeks.

Bloggers need rest too. Enjoy the break too and read something fun !

"Global Power Europe" blog

We don't "do" opinion and politics on this blog. At least, we endeavor to keep away from them. It is not that we don't have opinions or that we're not interested in politics. Our opinions are quite simply not interesting to others and any political analysis we could try would be banal beyond belief.

Here's a blog, called "Global Power Europe" that deftly mixes opinion and analysis. It is mainly about European defense, foreign policy and geopolitics. It is written by James Rogers, of Cambridge University, England, and occasional guest writers.

The posts on Global Power Europe certainly express opinions. Be ready for a challenge. They are worth reading because they are written with style, thought through and well researched.

New blog on European Convention on Human Rights

We're really delighted to draw your attention to a new blog on the European Convention on Human Rights.

It's called the ECHR Blog and is written by Antoine Buyse of the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Utrecht University.

As you will see, the coverage of the blog is comprehensive. It is well informed and well written. So, read it regularly !

Conflict of Laws and EU Law

Dash over to the Conflict of Laws blog.

There's a terrific guest editorial by Professor Horatia Muir-Watt on "Reshaping Private International Law in a Changing World". It contains many insights that a student of EU law would appreciate.

Just go over there and read the whole thing.

Great Grahnlaw Blog

And while we're on the subject of great EU blogs, look at Ralf Grahn's blog here.

Ralf is a lawyer in Finland and his blog, called "Grahnlaw", is about the politics, the law and the future of the EU. He also makes insightful comments on this blog for which we are very grateful.

Grahnlaw is highly recommended.