The Autumn School is the yearly executive training on EU competition law and economics for competition law professionals organised by the Florence Competition Programme, the hub for training, policy debate and research on competition law and economics of the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies.
“Our Autumn School gets participants up to speed on the latest developments in competition policy in the EU and other major antitrust jurisdictions,” said Professor Marco Botta, coordinator of the Programme, synthesising the aim of the executive training; “The interdisciplinary lectures by lawyers and economists strengthen the participants’ analytical and practical skills necessary to master competition law cases and overcome everyday work challenges.”
The Training Structure
The Autumn School involves four days of frontal lectures and real-life competition law group exercises under the lead of a top-notch international faculty. The live classes were also broadcasted on Zoom for online participants, expanding the training’s geographical reach and involving a diverse audience. Moreover, the daily lectures are integrated by an e-learning platform, enabling attendees to retrieve the recordings of the lecturers as well as background and follow-up materials. Not least, social events in Florence and an online forum facilitate the discussion and provide networking opportunities to all attendees. Indeed, one of the goals of the Florence Competition Autumn School is to create a network of competition law experts who can continue to exchange views and opinions and stay in touch after the training.
The 2021 Edition: Recent Developments in Competition Policy
The 2021 edition of the Autumn School covered the latest case law on Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU and the recent trends of both public and private enforcement of competition rules. During a much-awaited wine-tasting tour at the beautiful Castello del Trebbio, Professor William Kovacic opened the training with an overview of the Biden administration’s public enforcement in motion apparatus. The lectures then continued at Villa Schifanoia, on the EUI campus, featuring prominent EU competition law academics, practitioners and agency officials. Finally, on 8 October 2021, the participants had the opportunity to take part in the Florence Competition Autumn Conference, a major policy event discussing the European Commission’s ongoing revisions of the market definition notice, horizontal and vertical agreements block-exemption regulations.
Mark your calendar for next year’s edition!
The team of the Florence Competition Programme is already working on the next edition of the Autumn School, and competition law professionals will soon save the date for #EUIcomp22. See you next year!