Private enforcement

Advocate General, Damages, Disclosure, European Court of Justice, Evidence, Private actions, Private enforcement

(Latham & Watkins LLP) and (University of Vienna, Austria)/ /Leave a comment

Recent posts on this blog (here) have already highlighted the role that the adoption of Directive 2014/104/EU (Damages Directive or Directive) and the European Commission’s (EC) decision in case AT.39824 – Trucks, amongst other events, have played as turning points in private enforcement of competition law in the EU. The Directive has led not only…

Damages, Private enforcement, Slovakia, Stand-alone action

(WISE3 s. r. o.)/ /Leave a comment

In any system, the competition regulator’s ability to investigate, sanction, and remedy competition grievances are directly dependent on the size of resources (financial, personal, and informational) that regulator has at their disposal. Competition regulators have been known to issue policies setting priority areas for competition law enforcement based on sectoral and severity criteria to overcome…

Advocate General, Damages, European Union, Limitation Period, Private actions, Private enforcement

(Uría Menéndez)/ /Leave a comment

Advocate General Rantos delivered his Opinion in a request of a preliminary ruling by a Spanish court (case C-267/20), the Audiencia Provincial of León, the appellate court in a trucks’ cartel damages claim. In particular, Advocate General Rantos Opinion deals with the temporal scope of application of the Damages Directive; the “substantive” or “procedural” nature…

Damages, Fair Fund, Leniency, Private actions, Private enforcement

(University of Vienna, Austria)/ /Leave a comment

Europe’s leniency programs face a problem. Creating an incentive for private enforcement with the 2014 Damages Directive came at the expense of leniency applications all over the EU. A further balance of public and private enforcement will be necessary. Many approaches have been discussed. Recently, calls for exemptions or limitations of civil liability for leniency…

Class action, Damages, Portugal, Private enforcement

, , (DLA Piper Portugal)/ /Leave a comment

On 20 September 2021, the Portuguese Competition Court approved a settlement between Ius Omnibus, a non-profit consumer protection association, and the National Association of Land Surveyors (ANT), in the context of a class action filed by Ius Omnibus intended to obtain compensation for the damages suffered by consumers as a result of ANT’s allegedly anticompetitive…

Damages, European Court of Justice, Liability, Parental liability, Private enforcement

(Latham & Watkins LLP)/ /1 Comment

On 6 October 2021, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued its very much-awaited judgment in case C-882/19 Sumal, one of the most important cases in private enforcement of competition law of the last years. For those of you that are new to the case, the facts are as follows. On 24 October 2019, the Audiencia…

Damages, European Court of Justice, European Union, Jurisdiction, Private enforcement

(bureau Brandeis Paris)/ /Leave a comment

The Court of Justice of the European Union provides useful guidance on the interpretation of the concept of “the place where the damage occurred” to ascertain which court within a Member State has jurisdiction over a follow-on cartel damages claim. Pursuant to settled case-law interpreting Article 7(2) Brussels I bis[1], the court having jurisdiction over…

Brexit, Private enforcement, State aid, United Kingdom

(Gleiss Lutz)/ /Leave a comment

For many Britainophiles in the EU, the noise of the Brexiteers and their shouting about “world-beating Britain” during the last five years of the departure process have been hard to bear. However, the constant banging has also at times obscured the excellent work still being carried out by legal minds on the other side of…

Damages, European Union, Evidence, Private enforcement

(Spieker & Jaeger)/ /1 Comment

Despite the best efforts of the European legislator, in some European Member States private enforcement of competition law, that is, private litigation for compensation of cartel overcharges is meagre at best. One of the numerous reasons why private enforcement of competition law mostly fails is the lack of meaningful provisions for determining the damage suffered,…

Collective Redress, Damages, Germany, Private enforcement

(Spieker & Jaeger)/ /Leave a comment

The recent adoption of the Collective Consumer Redress Directive has reignited the discussion on collective private antitrust litigation – any ‘bundling of claims’ – once again. Even though collective redress on an EU level was first seriously discussed in the context of the Damages Directive, competition law does not fall into the scope of the…