Katrine Lillerud has defended her doctoral thesis

Lead Lawyer Katrine Lillerud defended her doctoral thesis on June 3 at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

The thesis is named “Nudging States with policy and regulation - The impact of the State aid modernisation in the European Economic Area",  and explores what impact the State aid Modernisation reform have on law enforcement in the European Economic Area (EEA).

In 2014, the EU's state aid regulations underwent a major reform. In particular, the thesis considers whether the reform has led to the correct balance between centralised (supranational) and decentralised (national) application of the regulations. An example is her assessment of whether the privatisation of enforcement at the national level through the introduction of the public register for support is successful.

The findings of the thesis indicate that the changes in the reform are effective in freeing up the Commission's time and affect the states' choice of aid measures by clearly increasing the use of the block exemptions. However, there is still potential for improvement, especially if the transparency around the aid is increased and the thresholds for using the information collection tools in the Procedural Regulation are lowered. Nor does monitoring of support at a national level work optimally.

Katrine holds a Master of Law degree from the University of Oslo (2010), as well as an LL.M. in European law from the University of Saarland and an LL.M. in Comparative European and International Laws from the European University Institute of Florence, Italy (2016).

She has worked in DLA Piper since 2010 when she joined the firm as an associate. Since 2019 she has been a Lead Lawyer with our regulatory department with special expertise in EEA regulatory issues such as competition and state aid law.

Read more about the thesis on the University's website or read her critical article on the national transparency registers here.