March… on the road!

09/03/17

After starting March with the rather sorry setting for the European Commission’s White Paper on the Future de Europe we have chosen to shoulder our backpack and take advantage of our fundamental freedom to roam and speak precisely about this subject: about the European Union.

• On 10 March we will be at Toulouse University speaking about the new General Data Protection Regulation, that odd provision which we will all, by the European Union’s volition, have to start applying on (ideally before!) 25 May 2018. Our part will be to discuss the data protection officer (DPO), a figure designed to look into an activity that is striking for privacy experts but well known to competition lawyers: risk self-assessment.

• On 15 March we will demonstrate the gift of ubiquity and simultaneously appear (i) at a Madrid Bar (ICAM) conference on the European Commission’s decisions last July on State aid to football clubs; and (ii) at the University of Barcelona (UB) to kick off the Competition Law module at the European Private Law course that the Jean Monnet Chair is offering for the first time. We told you about it last June, and it has become a resounding success.

• On 16 March we will remain in Barcelona to participate in the new edition of the Competition Law course at the Barcelona Bar (ICAB), speaking about abuse of dominant position. You know the stuff: United Brands’ bananas; Hoffmann-La Roche’s vitamins; Microsoft’s interoperability… and yes!, also about… what odds for Google?

• On the 21st we will speak again at the same egregious place, the ICAB, this time to discuss Authorities. Which is a most important subject to to any lawyer: Auctoritas non veritas facit legem…

• On 24 March we will be at the European University Institute Florence (EUI) to take part in a seminar on “Competition, Regulation and Freedom of Expression in Digital Markets.” Our job there will be to take a fresh look at the Services Directive and at whether it’s an appropriate basis for service provision in a digital environment.

• During the last week of the month, protected by the Privacy Shield, we will visit the cherry blossom on the banks of the Potomac. This will not, however, keep us from moderating, at the Ateneu Barcelonès, a debate on the Slovak Presidency of the Council of the European Union with the country’s Ambassador, Mr Grácz.

And… that’s all folks! Let us spread the European Union gospel as long as there is one. Which is precisely why we post this entry. WE think that every one of us should contribute to divulge the incredible successes of the European Union, whose 60 years of existence we celebrate this month. Lest there be none.