Prestigious American Award to Ignacio Herrera Anchustegui
BECCLE’s and the Faculty of Law’ PhD candidate has been awarded the prestigious Scholar-In-Residence Program award by the Antitrust Law Section of the American Bar Association.
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On Friday 11th of November Ignacio was informed that he was chosen as one of the two recipients of the Scholar-In-Residence Program award for the period 2017. This prestigious grant is awarded by the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association to the best two applications submitted by a young non-US based scholar to carry out a research project in the field of Antitrust/Competition Law and/or Economics. The research applications are evaluated by a panel of antitrust law and industrial economics experts that determines the winners based on the strength of the project application, the candidate’s CV, prior publications and other relevant academic factors.
The award grants Ignacio with a generous sum of money that allows him to spend at least three months in Washington D.C., and carry out a comparative study of the regulation concerning US Antitrust law. In his case, the research project is connected to issues of access to distribution networks in the sectors of electricity and natural gas and the problem of the essential facilities doctrine. This comparative research will be an additional component of his postdoctoral project: “Regulating energy markets, a perspective from EEA/EU Competition and Public Procurement Law”, financed by Statoil.
“This award is an incredible opportunity for me as a young researcher and something I am very humbled and proud to receive. I certainly did not expect it! Also, it is a recognition of the high quality research we carry out at the Law Faculty and BECCLE in the field of competition law and economics”, says Ignacio. “Thanks to this funding and extraordinary privilege I will be able to compare the US and EU systems and legislation when it comes to the regulation of energy markets. This will certainly broaden my horizons as a researcher and make my post-doctoral project more interesting in a global perspective. I am very grateful and honored for this opportunity and I hope to make the best use of it.”
As part of his trip to the US, Ignacio has been invited to participate in the ABA Annual Antitrust Meeting to be held in Washington D.C. in March, as well as visiting different US public institutions and scholars working in the field of US Antitrust Energy Law. Also, he has been invited to visit the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota to work with Profs. Peter C. Carstensen and Prof. Daniel J. Gifford, respectively.
The research project:
During his visit, Ignacio will carry out a study concerning the Antitrust Regulation of Electricity and Natural Gas Markets from an EU-US comparative perspective. Also, he will deal with the regulatory means employed in the US and the EU concerning the ownership unbundling process, the prevention of third-party non-discriminatory access to the distribution networks of electricity and natural gas, and the transition from a direct government regulation to a market-based system. Furthermore, he will investigate the scope and applicability of the essential facilities doctrine, with a particular emphasis in the energy sector. His objective is to determine whether there is or should be a different approach to third-party access concerning energy distribution in comparison to general antitrust law.
Lastly, Ignacio has been accepted as a Visiting Researcher at the Georgetown University Law Center, a well-known visiting scholar program.
If you are interested in Ignacio’s work, some of his publications are available here.
