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The Oxford University Law Faculty is holding a special lecture to celebrate the career of Sir Jeremy Lever KCMG, QC, a pioneer of both the practice and academic study of competition law in Europe.
Sir Jeremy’s academic contribution has been both profound and prolific. A Distinguished Fellow and Senior Dean of All Souls College, Oxford University, he was one of the earliest and most consistent advocates of an economically sound approach to competition law. He established and taught one of the first courses in competition law in the United Kingdom at Oxford University. Publishing The Law of Restrictive Trade Agreements he has contributed to Chitty on Contracts, the gold-standard work on English contract law, was a consultant editor for Bellamy & Child, Common Market Law of Competition and has continued throughout his career to contribute articles to the major academic journals on state aid, vertical restraints, the modernisation of Community competition law and a range of other matters.
In practice, Sir Jeremy’s career has been no less remarkable and innovative. Called to the Bar in 1957, taking silk in 1973, first as a tenant, and later as head, of what is now Monckton Chambers, he led it to become a leading set of the London Bar, specialising in European Law. In the European Courts, he acted in some of the most important competition law and state aid cases from the 1970s to the 2000s, including notably IBM, AM&S Europe, Ford, Tiercé Ladbroke, Cimenteries CBR, British Energy and Scott SA. In the UK courts, he has appeared in an extraordinary range of cases from the Restrictive Practices Court in the 1960s, through ex parte Datafin in the Court of Appeal in 1986, to the House of Lords in a series of cases including Crehan v Intreprenneur Pub Co in 2006.
Sir Jeremy has been described as “the father of competition law” in Britain by Judge David Edwards of the Court of Justice of the European Union and was appointed Knight Commander of St Michael and St George for services to European Law in 2003. He has practised at Monckton Chambers for fifty-five years.