Jan BlockxUniversity of Antwerp | UA · University of Antwerp Law Research School (UALS)
Jan Blockx
PhD LLM MPhil
About
29
Publications
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26
Citations
Citations since 2017
Introduction
Jan Blockx is an assistant professor at the University of Antwerp Faculty of Law, where he teaches European Union law, competition law, and technology regulation. Before returning to academia in 2016, he worked for ten years as a private practice competition lawyer in Brussels (and briefly Beijing).
Publications
Publications (29)
As the world becomes more fragmented, competition policy and enforcement are likely to change. Various legal regimes, such as economic sanctions, foreign investment screening and tariffs, will create obstacles to cross-border trade. Because of this and other reasons for companies to reshore, local markets are likely to become more concentrated, whi...
The football industry finds itself at a turning point. Through the recent rise and steep fall of the Super League, the concept of a super breakaway league in football is once again at the center of the discussions among football stakeholders. Whilst the key discussion points of such breakaway projects seem to be primarily of a commercial and politi...
I. Introduction
On 22 August 2020, the new Belgian rules prohibiting the abuse of economic dependence entered into force.¹ This new infringement was introduced by an act of 4 April 2019² but only entered into force now because it conflicted on a number of points with another amendment to the Belgian competition rules which was adopted around the sa...
The ‘more economic’ approach to antitrust recites two mantras: first of all, that antitrust analysis should only consider the effects of a practice, and secondly, that only the economic effects of a practice are relevant. The first mantra is impossible to satisfy in practice, thus the ‘more economic’ approach to antitrust has relapsed into formalis...
A number of authors have in recent years stated that current antitrust rules may not be able to police supra-competitive price levels (or indeed other undesirable market outcomes) which may result from the use of price robots.
This paper discusses what tools are available in EU antitrust law to tackle collusion by price bots, based on the existing...
In addition to the revised General Block Exemption Regulation, the European Commission has adopted various new guidelines
as part of its State aid modernisation programme.
Another major innovation of the last 12 months is the notice on State aid, which is due to be adopted formally at the beginning
of 2015.
In terms of case law, the developments...
This contribution provides an overview of the application of competition and related rules on the grocery retail market in Belgium. The rules on antitrust and the substantive analysis of mergers in Belgium is modelled on European competition law. However, there are some other rules relevant to the retail sector which are not entirely in line with E...
This article analyses the legal framework governing the relationship between the EU's agricultural and competition policies before and after the adoption of Regulation 1308/2013 which lays down the new rules on the EU's common organisation of agricultural markets. Those rules intend to clarify the relationship between agricultural and competition p...
The European Commission plays the most prominent role in European merger review, and judicial review of Commission decisions is rare. Despite this, European courts have an essential function in the merger review system in the European Union, both as guarantors of procedural rights and as a vector for the development of the law. This article discuss...
Projects
Projects (3)
Studying the role of European economic policy in the context of geopolitics
Can the legal system survive when confronted with rapid
technological change? This research project aims to substantiate
how the legal system, despite the need for legal certainty, also
entails an important level of flexibility. The legal system has indeed
always disposed of tools to ensure such flexibility, e.g. through
administrative discretion and the ability to distinguish and overrule
precedent. The research considers these issues specifically in the
field of economic regulation. It will describe the tools that economic
regulators in fields such as privacy regulation, competition law and
financial regulation have introduced to deal with technological
change as well as the legal technological solutions that have been
proposed to facilitate compliance with economic regulation.
In my PhD thesis I intend to describe the role played by mens rea (i.e. the subjective perspective of a perpetrator, its intentions and knowledge, and its blameworthiness) in European antitrust law. Both substantive rules (Article 101 and 102 TFEU) and procedural rules (Regulation 1/2003) are meant to be covered. I will also evaluate the role of mens rea in current enforcement: does it make sense to rely on it? should it be relied on less or more? etc.
