Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Penology, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: EU Immigration and Asylum Law, language: English, abstract: The landmark Metock judgement followed the lawsuit of four third-country nationals (TCNs) who unsuccessfully applied for asylum in Ireland, but who married migrant EU citizens living in Ireland and applied for a residence card as the spouse of an EU citizen. At the time Irish national laws made the right of residence for third-country family members contingent on prior legal residence in another EU Member State, and the applicants’ requests were ultimately denied since the requirement was not met. The four couples subsequently lodged an appeal, arguing that the laws were incompatible with Directive 2004/38 and that the decision represented a breach of EU freedom of movement law. In its judgment, the ECJ ruled that the Directive is in fact not conditional on the prior legal residence of third-country family members, and it went even further in stating that it was irrelevant “when and where their marriage took place and [...] how the national of a non-member country entered the host Member State.” The central importance of Metock is thus twofold: first, the ECJ’s ruling establishes that EU laws preclude stricter immigration standards applied on a national level and, second, the Court further extends the rights of third-country family members. Part I of this paper contextualises the Metock ruling by examining the legal evolution of the ECJ case law within the area of third-country family members’ freedom of movement rights. It identifies and analyses the evident trend of the Court significantly extending the rights granted to non-EU family members. Two key manifestations of this central trend will be investigated and exemplified, namely how the Court grants more extensive rights to non-EU family members by means of interpreting Community law expansively and, second, the Court’s move away from economic reasoning towards fundamental rights-based legal rationale. Part II critically assesses the seminal Metock ruling and analyses both its real and potential implications. In particular, three implications will be explored: how the ruling signifies yet a further extension of EC law regarding third-country family members’ rights; the clearer delimitation of competences between the member states and the Union within the area of Community immigration; and the potential increase in the risk of abuse and rise in illegal immigration.
Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Civil / Private / Trade / Anti Trust Law / Business Law, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: EC Competition Law, language: English, abstract: The first aim of this paper is to establish the Essential Facilities Doctrine's (EFD) undeniable existence in EC law and to determine how its application has evolved over time by analysing the relevant case law. By outlining the legal theory of the EFD, Part I shows that the Doctrine is a well-established competition law remedy within the refusal to supply framework of Article 82 EC. This paper argues that the EFD should be an exceptional measure, only applied after careful balancing of the dominant undertaking's freedom of contract and right to property against the potential benefits to consumer welfare. By investigating how the EFD has been applied practically in refusal to supply case law, the second half of Part I identifies the different criteria under which refusal to grant access to an essential facility was deemed to constitute an abuse, and concludes that the circumstances in which the EFD was initially applied were not consistent. It is submitted that it was not until the Bronner Judgment that the EU institutions began applying the EFD to refusal to supply cases within a coherent and sufficiently strict legal framework. Part II will deal with the second aim of this essay, namely to evaluate the legal evolution of the Doctrine's controversial application to Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). Because compulsory licensing of IPRs can have grave negative repercussions on innovation and consumer welfare, this paper maintains that the EFD's application to IPRs should be exceptional and subject to the strictest of conditions. It accordingly supports the notion that IPRs require special deference in comparison to physical property rights, and notes that the EFD is applied to IPRs under stricter legal standards than when applied to other property rights.
Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: Distinction, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: EC Competition Law, language: English, abstract: Despite the ambitious efforts of Article 81 to catch as much anticompetitive conduct as possible through its broadly defined "agreements" and "concerted practices", the title statement is nevertheless correct in stating that genuinely unilateral conduct escapes its scope. By analysing the limitations of Articles 81 and 82 EC, Part 1 of the essay will establish what constitutes genuinely unilateral anticompetitive conduct that slips through the net of both Articles. However, it is not only the direct limitations of Article 81 that render it incapable of catching unilateral conduct, but also the problematic issue regarding the "exact delimitation of the concept of an 'agreement' within the meaning of Art 81(1), and the distinction between such an agreement and unilateral conduct". This paper shares the view expressed in the title statement; Article 81 will require an amendment if it is to catch more unilateral conduct because its current flaws prevent it from achieving more. In order to justify this stance, this paper shall in Part 2 and Part 3 conduct a thorough investigation and evaluation of the legal evolution of how the European Courts and the Commission have determined where the borderline lies between unilateral conduct in vertical restraints and between an 'agreement' within the meaning of Article 81. As will be shown, the EC institutions - especially the Courts - have recently become more restrictive in their definition of what constitutes an agreement under Article 81. This development has had the regrettable result of allowing even more unilateral conduct to go uncaught. As a result of both the direct limitations of the Articles and of the now more restricted definition applied to an agreement, an amendment of Article 81 is in fa
Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Media, Multimedia Law, Copyright, grade: Distinction, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: Master Thesis in the LLM in European Law Programme, language: English, abstract: In what has been described as the most important competition law case in EU history the CFI upheld the Commission’s finding that Microsoft was guilty of committing two infringements of EC competition law: illegitimately to have refused to supply intellectual property (IP) protected interoperability information to competing workgroup server operating systems (WGSOS), and to have performed an illegal tie of its Windows Media Player (WMP) to its dominant operating system. Microsoft has been labelled “the biggest encroachment on intellectual property in European competition law history” and it is accused of hampering innovation and interfering with beneficial product integration by applying an anachronistic form-based tying test. In the opinion of the author the Judgment is an esoteric masterpiece of obfuscation that despite its considerable volume does little to provide legal certainty regarding the conditions under which compulsory licensing of IP rights (IPRs) will occur, or when technical integration will be deemed legal. Microsoft is of ever-increasing relevance for legal academics and undertakings alike for several reasons: First, since it is the most high profile ruling on the two most controversial issues within EC competition law – compulsory licensing of IPRs and tying – the Judgment will be a fundamental point of reference, especially amid claims that competition authorities’ concerns regarding the acquisition and use of IPRs are increasing and that legitimate worries of IP owners (IPOs) are accordingly engendered. Second, high tech markets are increasingly important to consumers and to the global economy, and Microsoft is the “focal point for the ongoing debate about the future direction of the software business” because it concerns all dominant high tech undertakings. Third, Microsoft was concluded in the light of the Lisbon Agenda, where the EU officially acknowledged IP protection’s paramount importance in generating the innovation necessary for economic progress. The Lisbon Agenda has lead to clarion calls for the improvement of the IP environment in Europe, and for innovation considerations to take more prominent part in competition law analysis. Yet this dissertation shows that the opposite regrettably occurred in Microsoft, where IPRs were essentially deprived of their use as a result of an indefensible weakening of the exceptional circumstances test. [...]
Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Penology, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: EU Immigration and Asylum Law, language: English, abstract: The landmark Metock judgement followed the lawsuit of four third-country nationals (TCNs) who unsuccessfully applied for asylum in Ireland, but who married migrant EU citizens living in Ireland and applied for a residence card as the spouse of an EU citizen. At the time Irish national laws made the right of residence for third-country family members contingent on prior legal residence in another EU Member State, and the applicants’ requests were ultimately denied since the requirement was not met. The four couples subsequently lodged an appeal, arguing that the laws were incompatible with Directive 2004/38 and that the decision represented a breach of EU freedom of movement law. In its judgment, the ECJ ruled that the Directive is in fact not conditional on the prior legal residence of third-country family members, and it went even further in stating that it was irrelevant “when and where their marriage took place and [...] how the national of a non-member country entered the host Member State.” The central importance of Metock is thus twofold: first, the ECJ’s ruling establishes that EU laws preclude stricter immigration standards applied on a national level and, second, the Court further extends the rights of third-country family members. Part I of this paper contextualises the Metock ruling by examining the legal evolution of the ECJ case law within the area of third-country family members’ freedom of movement rights. It identifies and analyses the evident trend of the Court significantly extending the rights granted to non-EU family members. Two key manifestations of this central trend will be investigated and exemplified, namely how the Court grants more extensive rights to non-EU family members by means of interpreting Community law expansively and, second, the Court’s move away from economic reasoning towards fundamental rights-based legal rationale. Part II critically assesses the seminal Metock ruling and analyses both its real and potential implications. In particular, three implications will be explored: how the ruling signifies yet a further extension of EC law regarding third-country family members’ rights; the clearer delimitation of competences between the member states and the Union within the area of Community immigration; and the potential increase in the risk of abuse and rise in illegal immigration.
Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - Civil / Private, Trade, Anti Trust Law, Business Law, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: EC Competition Law, language: English, abstract: The first aim of this paper is to establish the Essential Facilities Doctrine’s (EFD) undeniable existence in EC law and to determine how its application has evolved over time by analysing the relevant case law. By outlining the legal theory of the EFD, Part I shows that the Doctrine is a well-established competition law remedy within the refusal to supply framework of Article 82 EC. This paper argues that the EFD should be an exceptional measure, only applied after careful balancing of the dominant undertaking’s freedom of contract and right to property against the potential benefits to consumer welfare. By investigating how the EFD has been applied practically in refusal to supply case law, the second half of Part I identifies the different criteria under which refusal to grant access to an essential facility was deemed to constitute an abuse, and concludes that the circumstances in which the EFD was initially applied were not consistent. It is submitted that it was not until the Bronner Judgment that the EU institutions began applying the EFD to refusal to supply cases within a coherent and sufficiently strict legal framework. Part II will deal with the second aim of this essay, namely to evaluate the legal evolution of the Doctrine’s controversial application to Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). Because compulsory licensing of IPRs can have grave negative repercussions on innovation and consumer welfare, this paper maintains that the EFD’s application to IPRs should be exceptional and subject to the strictest of conditions. It accordingly supports the notion that IPRs require special deference in comparison to physical property rights, and notes that the EFD is applied to IPRs under stricter legal standards than when applied to other property rights. The second half of Part II investigates the Doctrine’s application to refusal to licence cases. This paper identifies that there has recently been a significant and regrettable attenuation of the abovementioned stricter standards since the criteria of the exceptional circumstances test under which the EFD results in compulsory licensing have been indefensibly widened following the landmark Microsoft Judgment.
Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, grade: Distinction, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: Regulatory governance in the European Union, language: English, abstract: The aim of this paper is threefold: first to establish how the regulatory and supervisory architecture has evolved in Europe over the last decade; second to determine how the shortcomings of the present system affected the onslaught of the financial crisis in Europe; and lastly to evaluate whether the proposed regulatory and supervisory reforms are likely to successfully repair these weaknesses. Part I identifies that the single market objective, combined with the significant integration of European financial services, provided the major impetus for bringing about reform to the regulatory and supervisory architecture of Europe. By investigating the Financial Services Action Plan (FSAP) and the implementation of the Lamfalussy Process, this paper illustrates that the member states and the EU institutions sought to achieve a flexible regulatory and supervisory structure marked by cooperation and conversion towards common standards. However, despite the commendable progress made, Part II shows that the regulatory and supervisory system has not kept pace with the financial integration, and that the current crisis revealed substantial inadequacies of the present system. This paper will demonstrate that the weaknesses in the European financial regulatory and supervisory architecture acted both as contributing causes of the crisis, and as exacerbating factors. In particular the essay identifies three such shortcomings that aggravated the crisis, namely that the current system caused a breakdown in member state cooperation and coordination, that it is marked by inconsistency, and that it lacks a sufficiently developed EU-dimension. Lastly, Part III investigates the proposed regulatory and supervisory reforms that the de Larosière Report brought forth. The Report makes recommendations for extensive reform and it is submitted that not only are these reforms likely to cure many of the current cooperation and convergence problems, but they would also equip Europe with a partially centralised supervisory structure that would help prevent future crises of similar cataclysmic proportions.
Scientific Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, University of Edinburgh (School of Law), course: Economics and Policy of European Integration, language: English, abstract: Part I of this paper will illustrate that although the currency union signified the next significant step along the European integration ladder that was built already back in 1958, it must be recognised that the single market is not yet fully established in Europe. Hence the phrasing of the title question suggests the reading of whether or not the single currency is absolutely necessary for the completion of the single market. Part II is dedicated to the central aim of this paper, namely to assess to what extent the common currency furthers, or indeed counteracts, the achievement of the fundamental single market objective. While this essay goes to lengths in highlighting the desirability of the single currency and its many benefits that help further the achievement of the single market, it does however maintain that the currency union is not absolutely necessary for the establishment of the common market. Indeed, as has been noted, "it is possible to have a single market without a single currency". Furthermore, as will be shown in the forthcoming sections of Part II, there are even situations in which the single currency might be harmful to the single market and to the Union. Although the answer to the title question of whether a single currency is really required must necessarily be in the negative since the single market could potentially exist without the euro, this essay will conduct an extensive evaluation of the successes and failures of the euro and the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) to further the single market objective in order to illustrate that the euro has nonetheless both enabled it to function much more efficiently and helped to bring European economic and political integration to previously unknown levels. In this sense the single market
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