Professor Pinar Akman specializes in competition law. She is the Director of the Centre for Business Law and Practice. Previously, she held a Chair at the UEA Law School, University of East Anglia. She is an Associate Member of the Centre for Competition Policy at UEA. Prior to coming to the UK, she worked at the University of Ankara Law School, Department of Commercial Law and qualified as a lawyer in Turkey. She has undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in law from University of Ankara Law School. She was ranked first overall in her undergraduate degree. Following her Masters, she received an ORSAS (Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme) Scholarship funded by the UK Secretary for Education and a UEA Scholarship that provided full-funding for her doctoral studies at UEA Law School and ESRC Centre for Competition Policy. Her PhD focused on the topic of abuse of a dominant position in EU competition law. She is the author of The Concept of Abuse in EU Competition Law: Law and Economics Approaches (Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2012; reprinted, 2015). Her peer-reviewed articles have been published in prestigious journals such as the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Modern Law Review, Antitrust Law Journal, Journal of Competition Law and Economics, European Law Review, Journal of Business Law, Journal of Law and Society, etc. She was shortlisted for an Antitrust Writing Award in 2016, 2017, and 2018 (Concurrences Review & George Washington Competition Law Center). In 2017, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (£100,000) which recognises “the achievement of outstanding researchers whose work has already attracted international recognition and whose future career is exceptionally promising”. She will use the Prize to research the optimal application of competition law in online technology markets. She has been involved in many other externally funded research projects. She was one of the investigators who successfully applied for over £4 million in funding for the ESRC Centre for Competition Policy (2009). Some of the other work she has undertaken has been commissioned by, for example, the UK Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform; energywatch; the Irish Competition Authority, and the European Parliament. In 2015/16, Prof. Akman conducted research commissioned by Google, Inc on the European Commission’s competition law investigation into Google’s practices in Europe.

Prof. Akman is a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and of the UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellowships (UKRI FLF) programme Peer Review College. In 2017/18, she was a Panel Member on the Social Sciences and Humanities Panel of the Irish Research Council for the Laureate Awards. She is a member of the Editorial Board of World Competition: Law and Economics Review (Kluwer) and of Oxford Competition Law (OCL). Prof. Akman regularly peer-review articles for journals including Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, European Law Review, Journal of Common Market Studies, International Review of Economics etc. In 2014, she was the International Rapporteur responsible for preparing an international report and resolution on abuse of dominance across twenty member jurisdictions of the International League of Competition (LIDC) in preparation for the Annual Congress. In 2017/18, she was a member of the Jury (Academic Steering Committee) of the Antitrust Writing Awards (Concurrences Review & George Washington Competition Law Center). She is a member of the Scientific Committee of Florence Competition Programme (based at the European University Institute), a training programme for national judges from EU Member States and other enforcers and stakeholders. She has provided competition law training to judges and competition authority officials from around the EU as well as to officials from Turkey.

She regularly receive invitations to speak at national and international events concerning all aspects of competition law. In 2018, Prof. Akman took part in a live Intelligence Squared debate on “Break up the Tech Giants” which was broadcast by BBC World News to a global audience of 70 million viewers. In 2018, She testified at the US Federal Trade Commission’s Hearings on Competition and Consumer Protection in the 21st Century on the topic of multi-sided platforms and exclusionary conduct. She similarly presented oral evidence to the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications on whether to regulate the internet. In 2017, Prof. Akman presented oral evidence to the House of Lords EU Internal Market Sub-Committee on Brexit and competition. Some of her other engagements have included addressing prestigious audiences at the Inaugural OECD Competition Open Day (2019); 17th OECD Global Forum on Competition (2018); Swedish Competition Authority’s Annual Pros and Cons Conference (2018); European Competition Day (2018); 129th OECD Competition Committee Meeting (2018); Training of EU Judges (2018; 2014); 13th Global Competition Law Centre (College of Europe) Annual Conference (2018); 16th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) General Assembly of the Hungarian Competition Law Association (2015); Annual Congress of the International League of Competition (2015); Antitrust Enforcement Symposium, Oxford Center for Competition Law and Policy (2014); 13th Annual Conference of the International Competition Network (ICN) (2014); 9th Global Competition Law Centre (College of Europe) Annual Conference (2013); 60th American Economic Association (AEA) Annual Meeting (2010). I am a regular commentator for the media including the New York Times, Bloomberg, BBC World, BBC Radio 4, Guardian, CNBC, Parr, etc.

In 2018, Prof. Alman was awarded a Women of Achievement Award by the University of Leeds. In 2018, she was also nominated for two University of Leeds Partnership Awards (inspirational teaching and supervisor categories). Prof. Akman is a Non-Governmental Advisor (NGA) to the UK for the International Competition Network’s (ICN) Unilateral Conduct Working Group and an NGA for Turkey for the ICN’s Cartels Working Group.