Competition

Robert Neruda

In my third year at law faculty, I went to Professor Bejček's lecture on competition law and ... I was lost. I was dealing with antitrust law as a student, as a trainee at the Office for the Protection of Competition, as an author of several books, as a lecturer, as a deputy chairman of the Office for the Protection of Competition, I worked at the court, until life took me to the legal profession. I like to learn how markets work, it fascinates me to be around great things. Competition law is the most, it sucks you in, but there is a risk it will drive you crazy. That's why I compensate: I run furiously and cheer a little less furiously at hockey games.

Petra Joanna Pipková

I actually hated the study of law, or law as such. Until one day my father told me, try one more year in Germany and, if you don't enjoy it even then, you can go and study something else. In Germany, I got on a course in competition law by mistake and completely fell for it. Although it is actually a question to what extent competition law is still about law and to what extent it is actually about economics, behavioural economics, sociology, psychology, etc. In any case, it is fascinating. Then, during a visit to a research library, my second passion caught my eye, and that is contract law. Thanks to the increasing number of damages claims for breach of competition law, I can finally link these two passions.

Ivo Šimeček

When I was deciding on law school, I had a feeling I was going to miss something. I also enjoyed science and mathematics, and at grammar school I studied in a class focused on programming. So I added a degree in economics to my law degree. Subjects that repelled others, such as statistics and economic and mathematical methods, I really enjoyed. After school, competition law was a logical choice for me, but during my short stint at the Office for the Protection of Competition, I also “sniffed” at public procurement. Today, with hindsight, I feel that it all came together quite nicely. Competition law itself is halfway between law and economics. My knowledge of public procurement gives me a good understanding of bid-rigging agreements. Well, and programming? That's there too, only instead of using “if then else”, you use the terms hypothesis, disposal, sanction.

Lenka Štiková Gachová

I must admit that competition law completely passed me by at university. From the beginning of my legal studies (or even before that, due to my grandfather's influence as a police investigator), my dream was to become a prosecutor. It was only by coincidence and a nudge from one of my former classmates that I applied for a job advertised by the Office for the Protection of Competition, which was looking for new staff for the competition section. When I was hired at the Office for the Protection of Competition, I considered it a transitional experience. However, I was so engrossed in competition law that I have not been able to detach myself from it to this day (i.e. since I graduated from university in 2002). And why did it happen? Probably because I have always enjoyed mathematics and technical fields alongside the humanities. Competition law ties everything together. In order to apply it correctly, it is necessary to know how the different and very diverse markets work (from food sales to electricity distribution, steel production, etc.). Therefore, advising on competition law never gets boring, you are always discovering something new and new things to learn.

Tereza Kusková

When I decided to study law a few years ago, I had a clear idea of my future direction. And to be honest, none of my plans included competition law. However, it only took one lecture in a European law course to make me understand that competition law might change one's mind. And so now I am part of a great team at HAVEL & PARTNERS that allows me to pursue what I really enjoy. And when I'm not competing in law, I do so in my spare time on horseback.

Vladislav Bernard

While studying at law school, I gravitated, perhaps out of laziness at the time, toward public law. I believed that within its framework all the rules would be clearly described in the laws. Then I got to competition law. I found out how naive I was. There is not much to describe in two paragraphs. Perhaps that is why competition law in all its complexity "caught my eye". Over time, I have become slightly concerned about how little fundamental rights and freedoms are protected in its enforcement. So I started studying constitutional law so that I could contribute to improving the situation. I would like to enrich the competition law section of the blog with insights from it.