Eureka!

Eureka! 

After 4 or 5 months of struggles to find a proper topic in which to devote the next 4 years I have managed to come up with what it seems to be an original and legally pertinent idea. Whoot! 

The first steps of my Norwegian PhD experience involved plenty of reading (more books than what I read for my LLM in 2 years!) and trying to find a good subject to write a dissertation. At first, the idea was to explore the relation between public procurement and State aid. The more I read about it the more I realized that either it was already very much explored or there was not enough substance for me to dig in. At least this was my outcome after trying hard to find a "niche". While reading my interest in public procurement and its interaction with an old interest of mine, competition law in pure and simple terms started to rise.

For the past month I have been exploring the interaction between public procurement and competition law. In other words, my research has been and will be focused on how the public procurement structure might lead to practices that can be considered as contrary to the competition law regime. The central idea is that public procurement tries to serve as a mechanism for the acquisition of goods, services and works for the State while minimizing corruption and increasing value for money; however, the public procurement structures may lead to distortion in the market not because of the rules itself, but rather because of the conducts that the procuring entity and the private players may adopt to win the award of a public contract. The research question is then: are unfair competition practices promoted by public procurement? If so, which types of conducts are observed and what changes are required to obtain a better outcome of both regimes?

Currently, two different aspects of the problem are being analyzed. The idea is to choose one of these sides of the coin. I have managed to differentiate concerns that are related to either public law or to private.

In the public law sphere the main issues are:

• Transparency as a facilitator of collusive behaviour.
• Tender modalities and their outcomes.
• Different forms of competition. Emphasis on price competition.
• Exclusion from tenders due to competition law laiabilities.
• Buyer power of procuring entities.
• Procuring entities as detectors of unfair practices.

(Btw, the Pope has just resigned to his post, back to public procurement now).

• Incumbency.

In the private law sphere the aspects of interest are:

• Incumbency, from a tenderer's perspective.
• Collusive practices.
• Foreclosure.
• Joint tendering.

Anyone has any comments on the project? All suggestions and ideas are more than welcome!

Å lære norsk!

After almost 5 months in Norway and just knowing how to say: “en øl, takk” (one beer, please) I have started this week with my Norwegian language course. Finally!

I must admit that I have been both lazy and relaxed when it comes to catching up with Norwegian. In Norway about 95% of the people I have met under 40 speak very, very good English (sometimes better than I) and the need to speak Norsk is almost non-existing. That, however, comes with a price. I feel that it is not respectful towards the culture, the people and the warm welcome I have had in this cold land (what a couple of crazy cold weeks we have had).

Æ-Ø-Å Sounds any familiar?

 

Looking back in time this is my fourth attempt (some serious, some not) to learn a foreign language in a group. I have experienced it with: English, French, German and now Norwegian. All the language groups seem to share certain common characteristics and some “traditional characters”:

-          The know it all. Yes, that girl (usually a female, yes!) that can speak 23 languages and is learning at the time 3 more. She knows all the grammar mysteries and will explain the rules better than the teacher. As time passes by, the teacher starts a love/hate relationship with the know it all and the rest of the group feels envy and wants to kill her for being “so good at this stupid language!”

-          The I have done the course before. All groups have someone that, for some obscure reason, did the course in the past but she/he is still here. This person knows a great deal of the language but not in a proper way. They tend to have what you believe is valuable information until you realize they learnt it in the wrong way. Beware of the I have done the course before!

-          The cellphone guy. There is usually a guy (or a girl, but to a lesser extent) that is always looking at his cellphone/table/laptop, you name it. He will be always updated with the most relevant financial/technical news and works more at the Norwegian class than at the office.

-          The teenager that never pays attention. This is usually the teenager or the guy that is in his/her early 20s and that attends because either: mom/dad paid for it; or it is a mandatory course part of his/her Erasmus studies. They do not care much about learning the language (apart from the pick of words) but rather more on networking with others from his league to plan the next party.

-          The guy that tries really hard… and cannot learn. It is usually a male. He tries, really tries. And he cannot. He is simply not good enough to learn the language and is usually delaying everyone but people do not mind as he is the “nice guy that tries hard”. He will be a wreck in the language but will pass the course.

-          The guy you have seen only 3 times during the last 4 months. There is always one dude that will come only to a couple of classes. He is busy, you don’t know his name and no one does. Somehow, he can speak the language and you are clueless on what is his secret.

Of course, there are more characters in a language course but they are also shared with a traditional classroom (such as the clown or the cute girl with 296 different pencils of different colors). For such a reason I do not mention them here.

Back to reality

Kind of a cold weather, eh?

Catching up, learning Norwegian will be a challenge as I will have to force myself to speak it in a place where EVERYONE speaks English. Norwegian is a must in my priorities as I need to speak it for my PhD research project (which finally has a topic!!! More on this on a next entry) and also because, well, I want to be able to communicate with Norwegians in their language.

Luckily I have min norske dronning to help me with the homework.

Ha det bra!

Travelling to China

It is not 100% confirmed, but rather 95%. The 1^st year Research Fellows of the Faculty of Law of the UiB are going to Shanghai!

The Nordic Centre at Fudan University (http://www.fudan.edu.cn/englishnew/) in Shanghai has organized for us a seminar in "Chinese Legal Culture" (http://www.nordiccentre.org/). The Nordic Centre is a Chinese entity that has contacts with 26 Universites from the different Scandinavian countries and aims towards the exchange of knowledge among the different universities in a multicultural environment.

During our seminar we will be introduced to a radically different legal culture and will be able to use such a comparative experience to better understand our own system of rules as well as get a glimpse of how Chinese Law works.

I am sure this will be an enriching opportunity for all of us and, for me, it will be the chance to visit once again China, a fantastic, enigmatic and surreal country.