Course Summary (including aims and objectives)Competition law and consumer protection are essential underpinnings of a market economy. According to economic orthodoxy, competitive markets enable society’s limited resources to be produced and allocated efficiently, thereby promoting economic prosperity. The global push for ‘deregulation’ is underpinned by a widely-held belief in the benefits of competition in generating appropriate incentives for both the private and public sector to carry out their activities in a manner that will promote the community’s welfare. But if left to their own devices, markets are unlikely to operate competitively because firms are able to reap greater private profits by engaging in anti-competitive conduct. Competition law is therefore required to regulate business activity that tends to impair the competitive functioning of the market and for this reason more than 130 jurisdictions have enacted competition law statutes. Competition law is intended to ensure that the market remains competitive, so that a meaningful range of options is made available to consumers. Competition rules do not seek to prescribe how firms should behave in the market, but they rather proscribe certain forms of economic behavior, which are deemed to be harmful to competition and consumers. Competition law rules influence and govern a broad range of corporate practices. For example, competition authorities may take enforcement action against firms, which agree not to compete with each other and secretly fix prices (‘cartels’), or against firms that have the ability to influence market conditions and to exclude equally efficient competitors (Microsoft, Google). Competition authorities also have the power to block mergers and acquisitions that are likely to create market dominance or otherwise harm consumers. In order to assess the likely impact of business practices and to determine whether these are nefarious, benign or healthy, competition authorities and courts evaluate economic evidence and engage in economic analysis. This creates a strong link between economics and competition law.Consumer protection laws are intended to ensure that consumers can effectively exercise choice in the market. They aim to safeguard the economic interests of consumers, empower them with free and informed choice and give them rights when something goes wrong. Consumer protection laws may specify a duty of information, a total prohibition of misleading and aggressive practices a prohibition of unfair contract terms in certain types of contracts and so on. Competition law exists in parallel with fields, other than consumer protection, such as intellectual property and data protection. While they often share common goals, the terms of their coexistence are not always straightforward. The application of competition policy to the Goliaths of the digital markets and e-commerce exemplifies the tensions between these fields.Against this broad background, the aim of this module is twofold. First, to offer an introduction to competition law and policy in the EU and the UK. We shall therefore examine EU rules governing anticompetitive agreements and unilateral conduct – namely Article 101 TFEU, which prohibits agreements and concerted practices among undertakings which restrict competition by object or by effect, and Article 102 TFEU, which bans abuses of a dominant position. To this end, most lectures will be dedicated to understanding the law and economics of specific practices in light of existing case law– in particular: cartels; distribution arrangements; predatory pricing; rebates; refusals to deal; and tying. Attention will also be paid to the specifics of public and private antitrust enforcement in the EU. Second, to explore the interaction between competition law and consumer protection (and to some extent data protection) in the context of e-commerce. E-commerce – broadly, buying and selling online – has become an important feature of economic activity throughout the world. The growth of e-commerce has the potential to increase competition and enhance consumer choice, yet it may also facilitate anticompetitive conduct by firms (e.g. algorithmic collusion), which is reflected in the increasing levels of antitrust enforcement in e-commerce markets.