Profile

Michael M. Collins SC is a barrister practising at the Irish Bar and the English Bar (through Monckton Chambers), having been called to the Irish Bar in 1978 and the English Bar in 1987. He graduated from University College Dublin with a B.A. and M.A. in economics and an LL.M. in law. He took a further LL.M. degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School before joining Shearman & Sterling in New York as an associate and was admitted to the New York Bar.

He commenced practice as a barrister in Ireland in 1981 and was admitted as a senior counsel in 1994. He is also admitted to practice in New South Wales and before the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. He was appointed by the Irish Government as Chairman of the Competition and Mergers Review Group whose report on competition law in 2000 was the basis of the Irish Competition Act 2002.

He was Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Economics at National University of Ireland, Maynooth on Legal Aspects of Competition and Regulation in the Master of Economic Science programme in 2004 and 2005.

Michael is a Bencher of the Honourable Society of King's Inns, an Adjunct Professor at University College Dublin Law School and a CEDR accredited mediator. For two years from 2008 to 2010 he was Chairman of the Bar Council of Ireland and is currently President of Arbitration Ireland. Michael's principal areas of practice are commercial litigation and arbitration. Apart from his litigation practice in Ireland, Michael has appeared many times before the European Court of Justice and acts frequently as counsel in arbitrations and as arbitrator including a number of ICC appointments.