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Michael Collins SC ADJUNCT FULL PROFESSOR |
Michael is a Senior Counsel practising in the fields of commercial, competition, EU law and judicial review. He graduated UCD with an M.A. in economics and an LL.M. He also took an LL.M. from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School of Finance before joining the New York law firm of Shearman and Sterling. He returned to Ireland in 1981 to commence practice at the Irish Bar. A member of the English, Northern Ireland, New York and US Supreme Court Bars, Michael also practices from Monckton Chambers in London. In 1996 he was appointed by the Irish Government as Chairman of the Competition and Mergers Review Group the majority of whose recommendations were subsequently implemented into Irish law in the Competition Act 2002. In December 2017 he was appointed by the Taoiseach to conduct an inquiry into a failure by the Department of Justice to disclose certain emails to the Charleton Tribunal of Inquiry into alleged police corruption, which led to the resignation of the Minister for Justice. His report was published in February 2018. Michael also appears in commercial arbitrations (domestic and international) both as counsel and as arbitrator. He is a member of the ICDR Panel of Arbitrators, a former President of Arbitration Ireland, current Chairman of the Irish Sport Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel and a former President of Irish Rule of Law International which works with the Irish Government on programmes promoting the rule of law primarily in Africa. He is one of 5 arbitrators from the EU appointed recently to the Panel of Arbitrators for the International Arbitration Centre in Astana, Kazakhstan. Michael was elected a Bencher of the Honorable Society of King’s Inns in 2007 and the following year was elected as a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers in the United States. He was Chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland 2008 – 2010. In 2012 he was elected a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers. He has been a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Economics at Maynooth on Legal Aspects of Competition and Regulation in Maynooth’s Master of Economic Science Programme. In the much more interesting parts of his life he is a board member of the Irish Film Institute, was for 13 years a director of the Dublin Theatre Festival and has served on the Development Council of the Wexford Opera Festival.