Staff profile

Bruce Wardhaugh joined Durham Law School as Professor of Competition Law in 2021. In the autumn of 2026, he was appointed as the incoming Dean of Durham Law School, with his term commencing on January 1, 2027.

Professor Wardhaugh previously taught at the University of Manchester (as Senior Lecturer and then as Professor of Competition Law), Queen's University Belfast and Newcastle University. He earned an MA, PhD and LLB (JD) from the University of Toronto, and an LLM (in International and European Law) from the University of Amsterdam. Prior to his career as a legal academic, Bruce was called to the British Columbia (Canada) Bar and where he practiced for a number of years.

He has written extensively on the competition issues surrounding collusion. Most recently (2022) he published a monograph with Cambridge University Press entitled Competition Law in Crisis: The Antitrust Response to Economic Shocks. This book examines how the competition law of the EU and its Member States has adapted to economic problems at the firm and industry-wide level in the past, and in particular whether it has exacerbated or mitigated them. With this analysis in mind, the book then turns to other crises (and their resulting economic fallout), which we now face. 

In 2020, Bruce published Competition Effects and Predictability: Rule of Law and the Economic Approach to Competition with Hart (Bloomsbury). His Cartels, Markets and Crime: A Normative Justification for the Criminalisation of Economic Collusion was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. 

In addition to these monographs, he has published numerous articles in scholarly journals. He is also a news correspondent for the European Competition Law Review on cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union. In that role he writes frequent comments on that Court’s competition law judgments. 

Bruce is the first person to twice win the Best Paper Prize at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Legal Scholars, with his 2013 paper "Bogeymen, Lunatics and Fanatics: Collective Actions and the Private Enforcement of European Competition Law" and his 2025 paper “Ticket Touting, Moral Outrage and Political Opportunism: How Not to Protect Consumers.” Both papers were subsequently published in Legal Studies.

He also contributes regularly to academic conferences and regularly provides responses to governmental consultations. In addition to this, he is frequently invited to speak to academic audiences and governmental agencies in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Brazil and Columbia. He holds an appointment as an International Visiting Professor at the National Law University, Jodhpur.

Bruce is also actively involved in the Society of Legal Studies (serving on its Executive Committee between 2013 and 2022) and has served as an Editor (later Editor in Chief) of Legal Studies, the Society’s journal.

Bruce has also served as the Law School's Deputy Dean for Internationalisation. In this regard, he developed and began the implementation of the Law School’s internationalisation strategy, which provided both a basis for the Law School's research collaboration with universities abroad as well as facilitating student recruitment efforts.

Media Contacts

Available for contact regarding

· Competition Law (including state aid and subsidy regulation)

· International Trade Law

· Corporate and Commercial Law

Selected Publications

Books

Competition Law in Crisis: The Antitrust Response to Economic Shocks (Cambridge University Press, 2022)

Competition, Effects and Predictability: Rule of Law and the Economic Approach to Competition (Hart, 2020)

Cartels, Markets and Crime: A Normative Justification for Criminalisation of Economic Collusion (Cambridge University Press, 2014) 

 

 Journal Articles

Ticket Touting, Moral Outrage and Political Opportunism: How Not to Protect Consumers. (2026) 46(2) Legal Studies 165-183

Algorithmic Judging: Lessons of Logic and Jurisprudence (2026) International Review of Law, Computers and Technology https://doi.org/10.1080/13600869.2026.2668322

Enforcement of Competition Law in Times of Crisis: Is Guided Self-Assessment the Answer? (2022) 15(25) Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies 63-86.

Closing the Algorithmic Gap: Rethinking Dynamic Pricing under Articles 101 and 102 TFEU” (2021) 5(2) CoRe: European Competition and Regulatory Law Review 122 – 131

Subsidies and Competition in the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement: All Pain for No Gain?” (2021) 18 Manchester Journal of International Economic Law 70 - 100

Punishing Parents for the Sins of their Child: Extending EU Competition Liability in Groups and to Sub-Contractors (2017) 5 Journal of Antitrust Enforcement 22 – 48

Intel, Consequentialist Goals and the Certainty of Rules: The Same Old Song and Dance, My Friend (2016) 11(2) Competition Law Review 215 – 238

Buying Competition: Developing Competition Regimes Through a WTO-Compliant Generalised System of Preferences (2016) 13 Manchester Journal of International Economic Law 22 – 49

Developing Regimes and Mobile Telecoms Regulation in the Twenty-First Century: Who Makes The Call? (2015) 6(3) European Journal of Law and Technology 1 – 24

Crisis Cartels: Non-Economic Values, the Public Interest, and Institutional Considerations (2014) 10 European Competition Journal 311 – 340

Unveiling Fairness for the Consumer: The Law, Economics and Justice of Expanded Arbitration (2014) 26 Loyola Consumer Law Review 412 – 469

Bogeymen, Lunatics and Fanatics: Collective Actions and the Private Enforcement of European Competition Law (2014) 34 Legal Studies 1 – 23 (Winner of the 2013 Society of Legal Scholars Association Best Paper Prize)

GSP+ and Human Rights: Is the EU’s Approach the Right One? (2013) 16 Journal of International Economic Law 827 – 846 

Cartel Leniency and Effective Compensation in Europe: The Aftermath of Pfleiderer (2013) 19 Web Journal of Current Legal Issues, September 2013 (http://webjcli.org//article/view/251)

The Cartel Offence within a ‘World Class’ Competition Regime: An Assessment of the BIS Consultation Exercise and its Results (2012) 8 European Competition Journal 573 – 588 

A Normative Approach to the Criminalisation of Cartel Activity (2012) 32 Legal Studies 369 – 395 

Closing the Deterrence Gap: Individual Liability, the Cartel Offence and the BIS Consultation (2011) 10 Competition Law Journal 175 – 194

 Chapters in Books

“Criminalisation of Cartel Activity” in Peter Whelan (ed) Research Handbook on Cartels (Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2022)

“Competition Law and the Internet” in Paul Lambert (ed) Gringras, The Laws of the Internet (Bloomsbury, 2022) pp 571 – 624 

“Cartels and Collusion” (2021) in Jürgen G. Backhaus (ed.) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, (Springer; Second Edition, 2021 - )

“Development, Property and International Investment: The Double-Edged Sword of Human Rights” in Ting Xu and Jean Allain (eds.) Property and Human Rights in a Global Context (Hart, 2016), pp 175 – 195 

“Chapter 4: Rights and Remedies” in David Vaughan CBE QC and Aidan Robertson QC (eds) Law of the European Union (Oxford University Press, loose leaf) 4.i – 4.iv, 4.1 – 4.606 (September 2015)

“Chapter 23: Economic and Monetary Union” in David Vaughan CBE QC and Aidan Robertson QC (eds) Law of the European Union (Oxford University Press, loose leaf) 23.i – 23.vi, 23.1 – 23.614 (September 2015)

• Competition Law (in particular EU and US)
• Corporate and Commercial Law and law and economics
• State Aid
• WTO law

• Recent Recognition: PhD External Examiner Trinity College Dublin (2015), Brunel University (2017, 2018)

  External Examiner  University of Leicester Law School (2019 - ); School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast (2020 - ); School of Law, University Of Leeds (2020 - )

  Grant Reviewer European Research Council, Polish National Science Centre (Nardowe Centrum Nauki), Leverhulme Trust (2012)

  Article Reviews Legal Studies, Journal of Antitrust Enforcement, World Trade Review, Web Journal of Current Issues, Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, Manchester Journal of International Economic Law, Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies (Warsaw), Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, European Journal of Law and Technology, CoRe: European Competition and Regulatory Law Review, Journal of Intellectual Property Law and Practice, Korea Legislation Research Institute Journal of Law and Legislation

  Book Proposal Reviews Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillian, Edward Elgar, Hart

Authored book

• Competition Law in Crisis: The Antitrust Response to Economic Shocks
  
  Wardhaugh, B. (2022). Competition Law in Crisis: The Antitrust Response to Economic Shocks. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108987707

Journal Article

• Algorithmic Judging: Lessons of Logic and Jurisprudence
  
  Wardhaugh, B. (2026). Algorithmic Judging: Lessons of Logic and Jurisprudence. International Review of Law, Computers and Technology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/13600869.2026.2668322
• Ticket touting, moral outrage and political opportunism: how not to protect consumers
  
  Wardhaugh, B. (2026). Ticket touting, moral outrage and political opportunism: how not to protect consumers. Legal Studies, 46(2), 165-183. https://doi.org/10.1017/lst.2026.10125
• Enforcement of Competition Law in Times of Crisis: Is Guided Self-Assessment the Answer?
  
  Wardhaugh, B. (2022). Enforcement of Competition Law in Times of Crisis: Is Guided Self-Assessment the Answer? Yearbook of Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, 15(25), 63-86. https://doi.org/10.7172/1689-9024.yars.2022.15.25.3