The European Commission Project Regarding Competition in Professional Services

Abstract

Many in the U.S. have now heard about the U.K. Clementi Report, which provided the impetus for the reforms in the 2007 UK Legal Services Act, which has dramatically changed the regulation of the legal profession in England and Wales. Most are not aware, however, that a similar initiative exists in the European Union and that it too has led to wide-ranging reform proposals. This article addresses the European Commission's Professional Services Competition Initiative. It reviews the context and background of this initiative, the Commission's stocktaking efforts and its resulting reports, which asked EU Member States to consider whether certain aspects of their lawyer regulatory rules were anti-competitive. The areas identified by the European Commission include lawyer qualification rules, lawyer monopoly rules, alternative business structure prohibitions (such as prohibitions on publicly trade law firms and multidisciplinary partnerships), fee rules, and advertising rules. This article also examines the reactions of some of the major stakeholders, including the European Parliament and the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE). Finally, this article discusses the implications of this EU initiative, which is one of several initiatives worldwide that is at the intersection of antitrust law (known in Europe as competition law) and lawyer regulatory law.

Keywords: legal profession, legal services, competition, antitrust, EU, CCBE, ABS, MDPs, regulatory objectives

JEL Classification: K33, l84, K10, 120, F01, L8, N70, L84, N70, N40, K40