The project, “Present and future of EU Competition Law for the national Judges: a workable approach”, is an initiative of the Universitàs Mercatorum in cooperation with University online Pegaso, that has organised a training for national judges in competition law co-financed by DG Competition of the European Commission.
Universitàs Mercatorum is the first all-Italian Startup University, characterized by different academic paths, all dedicated to innovation. It is the first public-private partnership for the governance of a university institution, which was created with the aim of assuming leadership in the formation of companies.
The implementation of ECLJ Project was carried out in collaboration with the University online Pegaso, that is the first University online in Italy, characterized by flexibility of its training proposals, which enjoys the best teaching and the most powerful technology and thanks to these qualities, it has supported Universitàs Mercatorum in the realization of the project.
The objective of ECLJ Project is to train national judges in the contest of enforcing European competition rules, in particular the public and private enforcement of boh the Antitrust rules and the State Aid rules.
This mission complies with the “Better Regulation Agenda”, the aim of which is to promote constant and consistent review of existing EU laws, so that EU policies achieve their objectives in the most efficient way.
The final objective of the project is to ensure a coherent and consistent application of EU competition law by national courts.
The project, "Present and future of EU Competition Law for the national Judges: a workable approach", consist of training activities such as:
Training of National Judges and judicial cooperation in the field of EU competition law is part of the Justice Programme 2014 -2020, contributing to support and promote judicial training, including language training on legal terminology, with a view to fostering a common legal and judicial culture.
Since 2002, DG Competition of European Commission operates a grants programme dedicated to the training of national judges in EU competition law.
From 2007 to 2017 approximately 120 projects have been co-financed, involving more than 8000 national judges.
The main goal of the Training of Judges Programme is to support a consistent and coherent application of EU competition law by national courts.
Training activity provides participants with an advanced state-of-the-art overview of the main issues concerning the application of competition law and economics and State Aid rules.
Participants benefit from a unique learning platform where different stakeholders can work together to build a common enforcement culture in the field of competition across Europe and beyond.
These objective can best be achieved through projects which specifically focus on the role of national judges in the application of EU competition law, their particular needs and work environments and pre-existing training and knowledge.