David O'Keeffe

David O'Keeffe is an Irish lawyer. He is emeritus Professor of European Law at University College London, Senior Counsel of Dentons international law firm and a part-time European administrative law judge.

Practice

As a practitioner, he specialized in EU and WTO Trade law, State aid, antitrust, and energy law. He litigated before the European General Court and the European Court of Justice, principally in trade cases. and the RFA appeal on the relationship between EU anti-dumping law and WTO law. He argued sanctions cases before the European Courts including the Dinamo Minsk litigation concerning EU sanctions against Belarus, and the cases OAO Minskii Avtomobilnyi Zavod and Belaz-upravljajusaja kompanija holdinga Belaz Holding v Council. He pleaded a number of competition cases including the Mediaset case on repayment of illegal State aid. He occasionally litigated in other areas such as the Eurojust case, pertinent for standing issues. He acts as an arbitrator in commercial disputes concerning the application of EU law.

Administrative law judge

From 2008 O'Keeffe was a judge of the Tribunal of the European University Institute. He was previously a Member for 6 years of the conciliation board of the European Space Agency. at a time when UCL had a number of European law scholars, including the eminent competition law expert Professor Valentine Korah, one of the founders of modern competition law and the first woman in the world to hold a chair devoted to this subject, Margot Horspool, Basil Markesinis and Nicholas Emiliou.

He was Allen & Overy Professor of European Law and head of the Department of Law, University of Durham 1990–1993. He was a visiting professor at numerous Universities including University College Dublin, and on the free movement of labor in the EU. and an editor of the Common Market Law Review 1985–2005.

EU Accessions

From 1990, in connection with the Enlargement of the European Union, particularly the accession of Central and Eastern European countries, he lectured on EU law and the legal consequences of EU accession on national law at universities and groups of civil servants, judges and legal practitioners particularly in Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia.

Personal

He was born in Ennis County Clare. He was educated at Clongowes Wood College, University College Dublin and Yale Law School.