Joe Lee, LLM Student (King’s College London), BBA (Law), LLB & PCLL (The University of Hong Kong)
On 5 November 2015, Dr. Angela H Zhang, Lecturer in competition and trade law at the Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, gave a presentation on the topic of “How EU Judges Behave in Competition Appeals” based on her recently published research paper titled “The Faceless Court”.[1] The lecture examined the career structure and incentives as well as background of EU judges and evaluated how these factors and the design of the EU judicial decision-making process may impact competition appeals. This article discusses the three main parts of the lecture: firstly, the selection, compensation and tenure of EU judges and the role of référendaires; secondly the dominance of French judicial culture in EU courts and lastly the hierarchical design of judicial decision making in EU courts and its impact on the degree of judicial scrutiny.