Ignacio Herrera-Anchustegui

Meltzer Award: 

Ingacio Herrera-Anchustegui joined the faculty of law at the University of Bergen in 2012. Born in Venezuela he first graduated with a law degree from Andrés Bello Catholic University. After three years of working as a licensed attorney he moved to Europe where he graduated the University of Vienna with a Master of Laws in European and International Business Law.

Ignacio’s field of academic interest is competition law. This subject is about establishing a legal framework and a set of rules that all actors must follow. However, competition law is not only for the business sector. Competition law has an impact on our everyday life, even if we hardly notice how it influences all our purchasing of goods and services.

Here in Bergen Ignacio wrote his dissertation on “Buyer Power in EU Competition Law”. Through the topic he examined an issue which is rather seldom dealt with in scholarly literature. Traditionally the focus has been pointed towards the seller and the regulation of their behavior, whereas the role of the buyer’s power is less explored. Ignacio’s dissertation was recently published in “Concurrences”, which is managed by independent company The Institute of Competition Law. There it won the 2017 Concurrences Award granted the best PhD thesis in Competition Law & Economics and it received excellent reviews.

During his career Ignacio has published several articles in well-renowned law journals and his works are characterized by a combination of insight in law and economy. He is currently researcher on the project “Regulating energy markets, a perspective from EEA/EU Competition and Public Procurement Law”. The project is financed by Statoil through – Akademia Avtalen or the “Academia Agreement”. As part of this project Ignacio was awarded “The scholar-in-residence programs award” by the American Bar Association.

He is also part of the leader group of BECCLE, Bergen Center for Competition Law and Economics, which is jointly owned by Norwegian School of Economics and the University of Bergen.

Ignacio is a well-oriented researcher with the capability of making comparable studies between jurisdictions as well as interdisciplinary research. With an ability to combine insight from various fields, and knowledge of several languages, his results have a great international potential, and it impacts the European development of competition law. His works have already been referred to by the European Commission and by the President of the UK Supreme Court.

According to the statutes of the Meltzer prize for younger researchers the research should be independent and innovative. Both these elements are clearly present in Ignacio’s research, and he is well deserving of the prize!