Peter Whelan
Professor Peter Whelan is a Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of Leeds, who specialises in competition (antitrust) law and criminal law. He is the Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice. Peter has a PhD in Law from St John's College, University of Cambridge and is a qualified US Attorney-at-Law. He is the Managing Editor of Oxford Competition Law (Oxford University Press) and is a member of the World Economic Forum Expert Network.
Peter has provided oral evidence twice to the New Zealand Parliament on cartel criminalisation. He has also provided expert evidence to the Competition Law Review Committee, which was set up by the Indian Government to review its competition regime. He was appointed as an International Expert by the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority and in that position wrote a report advising the Finnish Ministry of Justice on the desirability of introducing criminal cartel sanctions in Finland. He has provided training in competition law to the Romanian judiciary, the Omani competition authority and the Eswatini Competition Commission. He is a Non-Governmental Advisor to the International Competition Network, which comprises over 130 of the world’s competition authorities. He is a member of the United Nations Working Group on Cross-Border Cartels, which is led by UNCTAD. His work has been cited in judgments in South America, Europe and Africa, as well as in the New Zealand Parliament.
Peter has published widely in prestigious law journals (including Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Cambridge Law Journal and Modern Law Review). He is the author of a monograph analysing the inherent challenges of European cartel criminalisation, which was published by Oxford University Press as part of their series Oxford Studies in European Law. His latest academic monograph (on parental liability in EU competition law) is in press and will be published in August 2023 by Oxford University Press. Peter is currently working on a third monograph (on debarment in competition law); it will be published in due course by Oxford University Press. To date he has presented his research on six continents and in over thirty countries.
Address: @drpeterwhelan
Peter has provided oral evidence twice to the New Zealand Parliament on cartel criminalisation. He has also provided expert evidence to the Competition Law Review Committee, which was set up by the Indian Government to review its competition regime. He was appointed as an International Expert by the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority and in that position wrote a report advising the Finnish Ministry of Justice on the desirability of introducing criminal cartel sanctions in Finland. He has provided training in competition law to the Romanian judiciary, the Omani competition authority and the Eswatini Competition Commission. He is a Non-Governmental Advisor to the International Competition Network, which comprises over 130 of the world’s competition authorities. He is a member of the United Nations Working Group on Cross-Border Cartels, which is led by UNCTAD. His work has been cited in judgments in South America, Europe and Africa, as well as in the New Zealand Parliament.
Peter has published widely in prestigious law journals (including Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Cambridge Law Journal and Modern Law Review). He is the author of a monograph analysing the inherent challenges of European cartel criminalisation, which was published by Oxford University Press as part of their series Oxford Studies in European Law. His latest academic monograph (on parental liability in EU competition law) is in press and will be published in August 2023 by Oxford University Press. Peter is currently working on a third monograph (on debarment in competition law); it will be published in due course by Oxford University Press. To date he has presented his research on six continents and in over thirty countries.
Address: @drpeterwhelan
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Books by Peter Whelan
Its interdisciplinary team of top scholars explores theoretical, legal, economic, political, and comparative discourse surrounding cartel regulation. Collectively, its chapters address the major economic, substantive, and procedural issues encountered in cartel law and provide practical insight into the experiences of numerous jurisdictions from across the globe concerning anti-cartel enforcement. Rigorous and authoritative, this Research Handbook captures the informed views of various stakeholders in the debate at hand, including those of competition law academics, competition law economists, practising lawyers, and competition law enforcers.
Critically evaluates the legitimacy of parental antitrust liability from both positive and normative perspectives.
Advances a fully-rationalised, workable plan for reforming parental antitrust liability.
The existence of such criminal sanctions within the EU presents a number of crucial challenges that need to be met if the underlying enforcement objectives are to be achieved in practice without violating prevailing legal norms. For a start, given the severe consequences of a custodial sentence, the employment of criminal antitrust punishment must be justifiable in principle: one must have a robust normative framework rationalising the existence of criminal cartel sanctions. Second, for it to be legitimate, antitrust criminalisation should only occur in a manner that respects the mandatory legalities applicable to the European jurisdiction in question. These include the due process rights of the accused and the principle of legal certainty. Finally, the correct practical measures (such as a criminal leniency policy) need to be designed in order to ensure that the employment of criminal antitrust punishment actually achieves its aims while maintaining its legitimacy.
These three particular challenges can be conceptualised respectively as the theoretical, legal and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalisation. This book aims to analyse these three crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalisation can be understood more accurately. In doing so, this book acknowledges that the three challenges should not be considered in isolation. In fact, it is the thesis of this book that there is a dynamic relationship between the theoretical, legal and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalisation and that an effective antitrust criminalisation policy is one which recognises and respects this complex interaction.
This book is of immediate relevance to academics who research in the field of competition law enforcement, as well as to students and practising lawyers who wish to understand the complexities of criminal antitrust sanctions and the problems that they engender. It is also aimed at important stakeholders in the process of European antitrust criminalisation, such as antitrust officials, legislators and the judiciary. While its target audience is a specialist one, this book contains analyses which would also be of interest to all of those who question the necessity and appropriateness of this increasingly popular approach to competition law enforcement.
"
Papers by Peter Whelan
The increase in the maximum custodial sentence in particular has some potential to perform a signalling function to trial judges in Ireland regarding the seriousness of cartel activity and the need for the imposition of custodial sentences on cartelists.
Recent experience in Ireland demonstrates that juries may be prepared to convict alleged individual cartelists, even when their doing so may result in the imposition of a custodial sentence.
By no longer requiring plaintiffs in follow-on private actions to prove a breach of competition law, Irish law has also facilitated less burdensome private competition law enforcement."
Its interdisciplinary team of top scholars explores theoretical, legal, economic, political, and comparative discourse surrounding cartel regulation. Collectively, its chapters address the major economic, substantive, and procedural issues encountered in cartel law and provide practical insight into the experiences of numerous jurisdictions from across the globe concerning anti-cartel enforcement. Rigorous and authoritative, this Research Handbook captures the informed views of various stakeholders in the debate at hand, including those of competition law academics, competition law economists, practising lawyers, and competition law enforcers.
Critically evaluates the legitimacy of parental antitrust liability from both positive and normative perspectives.
Advances a fully-rationalised, workable plan for reforming parental antitrust liability.
The existence of such criminal sanctions within the EU presents a number of crucial challenges that need to be met if the underlying enforcement objectives are to be achieved in practice without violating prevailing legal norms. For a start, given the severe consequences of a custodial sentence, the employment of criminal antitrust punishment must be justifiable in principle: one must have a robust normative framework rationalising the existence of criminal cartel sanctions. Second, for it to be legitimate, antitrust criminalisation should only occur in a manner that respects the mandatory legalities applicable to the European jurisdiction in question. These include the due process rights of the accused and the principle of legal certainty. Finally, the correct practical measures (such as a criminal leniency policy) need to be designed in order to ensure that the employment of criminal antitrust punishment actually achieves its aims while maintaining its legitimacy.
These three particular challenges can be conceptualised respectively as the theoretical, legal and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalisation. This book aims to analyse these three crucial challenges so that the complexity of the process of European antitrust criminalisation can be understood more accurately. In doing so, this book acknowledges that the three challenges should not be considered in isolation. In fact, it is the thesis of this book that there is a dynamic relationship between the theoretical, legal and practical challenges of European antitrust criminalisation and that an effective antitrust criminalisation policy is one which recognises and respects this complex interaction.
This book is of immediate relevance to academics who research in the field of competition law enforcement, as well as to students and practising lawyers who wish to understand the complexities of criminal antitrust sanctions and the problems that they engender. It is also aimed at important stakeholders in the process of European antitrust criminalisation, such as antitrust officials, legislators and the judiciary. While its target audience is a specialist one, this book contains analyses which would also be of interest to all of those who question the necessity and appropriateness of this increasingly popular approach to competition law enforcement.
"
The increase in the maximum custodial sentence in particular has some potential to perform a signalling function to trial judges in Ireland regarding the seriousness of cartel activity and the need for the imposition of custodial sentences on cartelists.
Recent experience in Ireland demonstrates that juries may be prepared to convict alleged individual cartelists, even when their doing so may result in the imposition of a custodial sentence.
By no longer requiring plaintiffs in follow-on private actions to prove a breach of competition law, Irish law has also facilitated less burdensome private competition law enforcement."