Barry Doherty BL

Barry Doherty was called to the Bar in 1995 and initially worked in the European Commission’s Legal Service in Brussels, Belgium. In that capacity he built up extensive experience of EU law and litigation. He worked in a variety of sectors, particularly competition, telecommunications and agriculture.

Between 2000 and 2003 he was Senior Legal Adviser to the Irish telecommunications regulator (Office of the Director of Telecommunications, later the Commission for Communications Regulation or “ComReg”).

In 2008 he returned to Ireland and took up practice as a barrister specialising in EU law. He appears before the Irish and EU courts on a wide variety of EU law topics, in particular State aid law, competition and public procurement. Between 2008 and 2018 he also served  as an alternate member of the Board of Appeal of the European Chemicals Agency based in Helsinki, Finland.

He has been nominated by the European Union as one of the members of the panel of arbitrators under Article 171 of the Withdrawal Agreement between the EU and the UK.

Barry Doherty is instructed by solicitors and in-house counsel on a wide number of court and non-court matters, in Ireland and before the EU courts. Recent cases in the public domain include:

• The Apple State aid litigation (Case T-778/16 Ireland v Commission)
• Air travel tax cases (Cases C‑164/15 P and C‑165/15 P Commission v Aer Lingus and Ryanair)
• Joined Cases C‑20/15 P and C‑21/15 P World Duty Free Group (State aid)
• Case C‑77/20 KM  (Fisheries)
• Cases T‑816/17 and T‑318/18 Luxembourg v Commission (State aid)
  
• Case T‑449/14 Nexans v Commission (Competition)

Currently member of the Editorial Board of the Irish Journal of European Law. Past publications (excluding book reviews etc) include

• Dissection as Punishment [1992] Irish Student Law Review 84
• Playing poker with the Commission: right of access to the Commission file in competition cases [1994] 1 European Competition Law Review 8
• Community Exemptions in National Law [1994] 6 European Competition Law Review 315
• Should Arbitration be like Litigation ? [1995] Commercial Law Practitioner 204
• “Occupiers’ Liability Act 1995” in Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated (1995)
• Justice Denied: Delay in Criminal Proceedings, (1998) 49 Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly 385 (with Siún O’Keeffe)
• C. Competition Law before the Irish Courts – the first 25 Years [1999] European Competition Law Review 78
• Bickel – Extending the Boundaries of European Citizenship (1999) 8 Irish Journal of European Law 70
• Will breaching EC law in Ireland become a criminal offence ? Competition, Volume 9, ed. 2, p. 36 (April 2000)
• The Status of the Irish Language in Community Law (2000/01) 2 University of Limerick Law Review 1
• Just what are essential facilities? (2001) 38 Common Market Law Review 397
• Competition Law and Sector-specific Regulation (2001) 7 Computer and Telecommunications Law Review 225
• “EC Telecommunications Law in Ireland” in Irish Perspectives on European Union Law (ed. Cathrina Keville and Mary Catherine Lucey, Round Hall Sweet & Maxwell Dublin 2003) pp 111-139
• “Communications Regulation Act 2002” in Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated 1. (December 2002)
• Land, Milk and Freedom – Implementing Community Law in Ireland (2004) 11 Irish Journal of European Law 141
• “Electricity Regulation (Carbon Revenue Levy) (Amendment) Act 2012” in Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated (June 2012)
• “Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2014” in Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated (January 2015)
• “Courage to change? The rocky road to Directive 2014/104/EU and the future of private competition law enforcement in Ireland” (2015) 18(2) Irish Journal of European Law 15 (with Anne Fitzpatrick)
• Note on Competition (Amendment) Bill 2022 https://www.lawlibrary.ie/viewpoints/the-competition-amendment-bill-2022/

In the past, Barry has taught at undergraduate or postgraduate level at NUI Maynooth, Griffith College Dublin, and Trinity College Dublin. He occasionally speaks at legal conferences, and occasionally gives short training talks to staff in bodies such as the Office of the Attorney General.