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Dr. Richard Bunworth

Assistant Professor (Law)
      
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Dr. Richard Bunworth

Assistant Professor (Law)

 RICHARD.BUNWORTH@tcd.ie

 


Dr. Richard Bunworth is an Assistant Professor in Intellectual Property Law at the School of Law. He teaches Intellectual Property Law, Industrial Property, and related subjects. He supervises dissertations on various aspects of intellectual property law and competition law at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Richard studied law as an undergraduate at Trinity College, Dublin. Following completion of his undergraduate degree, Richard read for the Bachelor of Civil Law degree at the University of Oxford. In addition, Richard obtained a Master of Arts degree from King's College London. He completed his PhD at University College Dublin where he was an Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholar and Sutherland Doctoral Scholar. His thesis was titled "EU Merger Control and the Development of an Alternative to the Consumer Welfare Standard: Incorporating the Union's Social Values". Richard has published articles in a number of international peer-reviewed journals including the European Competition Law Review, the International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, and the International Sports Law Journal. Richard's primary research interests lie in EU competition law, where he seeks to explore the interaction between the traditional focus on economic factors in the discipline and the EU's evolving social dimension. He regularly presents his work at international academic and stakeholder conferences. Prior to returning to academia, Richard worked as a solicitor in the finance department of one of Ireland's foremost corporate law firms, having qualified in 2017. He is also qualified to practice in England and Wales having spent a period in the firm's London office. Previously, he held a role as a researcher at a commercial litigation firm in London. Richard has acted as a consultant to the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and in March 2024 was appointed as a Non-Governmental Advisor to the CCPC. He acts as the CCPC's lead on the International Competition Network Mergers' Working Group. As part of this role, Richard attended the annual International Competition Network conference in May 2024 in Salvador, Brazil as part of the Irish delegation. Richard welcomes expressions of interest in PhD supervision in his areas of teaching and research interests, and in particular, competition law and intellectual property law.
  Competition Law   EU Law   EU merger law   Intellectual Property   Sports law and policy
Details Date
Non-Governmental Advisor to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission 2024-2026
Language Skill Reading Skill Writing Skill Speaking
English Fluent Fluent Fluent
Details Date From Date To
Law Society of Ireland 1 April 2017
Society of Legal Scholars (SLS) 2024
Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA) 2023
Doing Feminist Legal Work 2023
Competition Copycats: The Brussels Effect and the Diffusion of the EU's Social Values in, editor(s)Ranjana Andrea Achleitner, Eva Fischer, Lena Hornkohl and Bernadette Zelger , Questioning the Role of Competition in the 21st Century, Germany, Nomos, 2025, pp303 - 336, pp303-336 , [Richard Bunworth], Book Chapter, PUBLISHED  URL
Richard Bunworth, Home Advantage: The Irish Rugby Football Union's Eligibility Restrictions in Light of the Diarra Case, Competition Law Review, 16, (2), 2025, p93 - 114, Journal Article, PUBLISHED  URL
Richard Bunworth, Assessing Irish Merger Control: How a Small National Competition Authority Can Make a Big Impact, World Competition, 48, (4), 2025, p521 - 552, Notes: [httpss://doi.org/10.54648/woco2025032], Journal Article, PUBLISHED  TARA - Full Text  DOI  URL
Richard Bunworth, In the Market for a New Form of Abuse? Google Shopping and the Law on Self-Preferencing in the EU, Hibernian Law Journal, 2022, p121 - 139, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, Pre-Emptive Acquisitions in the Technology Sector: Is it Time to Reconsider the Turnover Thresholds?, IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, 2021, p734 - 751, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, CK Telecoms UK Limited v Commission - A Significant Impediment to Effective Protection, IIC - International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, 2021, p283 - 295, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, A Presumption of Harm in Innovation Merger Cases - Creating an Unfair Barrier?, European Competition Law Review, 2021, p622 - 630, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, The European Commission's innovation spaces approach - a step into the unknowable?, European Competition Law Review, 2021, p140 - 156, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, Egg-shell skulls or institutional negligence? The liability of World Rugby for incidents of concussion suffered by professional players in England and Ireland, The International Sports Law Journal, 2016, p82 - 98, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, It's Time to Acknowledge the Socially Conscious Consumer in the Room: Competition Law and the Need for a Shift Away from the Consumer Welfare Standard, Academic Society for Competition Law - ASCOLA Annual Conference, Athens, Greece, 29 June - 1 July 202, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
  

Richard Bunworth, Broadening Research Horizons, Doing Feminist Legal Work: Best Practice Guide, 2024, p8 - 8, Journal Article, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, It's Time to Acknowledge the Socially Conscious Consumer in the Room: Antitrust and the Need for a Shift Away from the Consumer Welfare Standard, 2023, Working Paper, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, Home Advantage: The Irish Rugby Football Union's Eligibility Restrictions in Light of the Diarra Case, XLIII Competition Law Scholars Forum Workshop (Clasf) - Competition Law in a Sporting Context, University of Porto, Portugal, 24 April 2025, Conference Paper, PRESENTED
Richard Bunworth, Step Aside, Consumer Welfare Standard: It is Time for the Socially Conscious Consumer to Take Centre Stage, Sustainable Global Economic Law, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands, 19-21 June 2023, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, The Brussels Effect and the diffusion of the EU' social values through competition law, Young Competition Law Scholars' Conference, University of Vienna, Austria, 5-6 September 2024, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED
Richard Bunworth, It's Time to Acknowledge the Socially Conscious Consumer in the Room, IUROPA Workshop on Empirical and Legal Research in EU Law, University of Oslo, Norway, 25-28 September 2023, Conference Paper, PUBLISHED

  


Award Date
Hub Heyman Fellowship, Columbia University, New York 2026-2027
Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship, Irish Research Council 2022-2024
Sutherland Doctoral Scholar, University College Dublin 2021-2024
Laura Bassi Scholarship, Editing Press 2021-2022
Nominated for the Legal Educator of the Year award, Irish Law Awards 2025
Nominated for the Concurrences Antitrust Writing Awards Best Student Paper for paper titled "A Presumption of Harm in Innovation Merger Cases: Creating an Unfair Barrier?" 2022
Nominated for the Concurrences Antitrust Writing Awards Best Student Paper for paper titled "CK Telecoms UK Limited v Commission - A Significant Impediment to Effective Protection?" 2021
Richard's research is primarily in the area of EU law, with a particular emphasis on competition law within the Union. He focuses on how the traditionally economics-led discipline of competition law should interact with the EU's evolving social values. In particular, his work relates to the integration of gender and economic equality into European competition law. Richard's research also concentrates on digital markets and emerging technologies, and how both competition law and intellectual property law should address the challenges that they have brought. In addition to his interest in EU law, Richard has conducted research on Irish competition law and was appointed as a Non-Governmental Advisor to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission to provide expertise on aspects of Irish and EU competition law. He has a strong interest in the interaction of sport with the law and has written articles relating to this area. Richard regularly presents his work at international academic and stakeholder conferences and has published articles in a number of international peer-reviewed journals focused on competition law and intellectual property law. He has received funding and grants from various bodies including the Irish Research Council.