Hybrid | Competition Law in Developing Countries: From Fair to Free to Perfect Markets

Speaker: Dr Dina Waked (SciencesPo Law School)
Chair: Simon Holmes (UK Competition Appeal Tribunal)

About the lecture

Competition law is so malleable that it can be used in many different ways to structure markets and regulate the conduct of firms therein. The never-ending debates about the purpose and goals of competition laws testifies to the multiplicity of objectives these laws can attain. Over the years, the image of the ideal market has changed - from fair to free to perfect, and competition laws and policies have accommodated this transformation. This has forever changed how our markets are constructed, the role of the state and the bargaining of actors therein.

Developing countries have rarely taken the space, both in legal, economic and also political terms to choose the market structure and corresponding competition law and policy that suits them best. In this talk I aim to focus on these choices from the perspective of the Global South particularly in relation to: (1) the efficiency of the market; (2) the notion of perfect competition; (3) the freedom of actors; (4) and redistribution of power and resources.

About the speaker

Dina Waked is an associate professor and director of the doctoral program at Sciences Po Law School in Paris. She holds an S.J.D. (Doctor of Judicial Science) and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School, an LL.B. from Cairo University Law School, and a BA in Economics from the American University in Cairo. Her doctoral thesis received the Harvard Law School 2012 John M. Olin Law & Economics Prize. She teaches courses on Global Antitrust Law, Comparative Competition Law and Economic Development, Law and Economics, and Regulation. Her research and publications explore issues related to critical law and economics, competition law and development theory. Her work aims at showing the ways laws and policies affect redistribution, inequality and social justice. Specifically, her work focuses on the intersection between antitrust enforcement and economic development in the Global South. She also works on the history of law and economics to outline the dialectic relationship between these disciplines through the 19th century onwards. She has advised a number of governments and international organizations on competition law compliance and the assessment of competition law reforms.

About the chair

Simon Holmes advised businesses on competition law for some 35 years before joining the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal as a judge. He was latterly head of competition law at SJ Berwin and then King & Wood Mallesons –first in the UK and Europe and then on a global basis.

He is a Visiting Professor at Oxford University where he teaches competition law. He is also an adviser to the NGO, ClientEarth; co - chair of the Sustainability and Competition Taskforce of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC); a member of the international advisory board of the LDC (Insituto de derecho de la competencia); an associate member of the UCL Centre for Law, Economics, and Society (CLES); and a strategic advisor to Sustainable Public Affairs in Brüssels. 

He writes and speaks regularly on competition and regulatory issues and has a particular interest in the relationship between climate change, sustainability and competition law. He is co- editor of a new book on this published by Concurrence: “Competition Law, Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability”.

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