On 6 November 2022, the Portuguese Competition, Regulation and Supervision Court of Santarém rendered a key judgment in relation to damages proceedings against participants in the European Trucks Cartel. The Court addressed key points, such as the standard of proof, limitation periods, and net price effects in a comprehensive EU case law state of play-based interpretation of national law. Granting the 15.4% overcharge identified in the claimant’s expert report and rejecting the defendant’s “no damage” argumentation, this judgment will have a positive impact beyond the Trucks Cartel case.
Trucks cartel: New CJEU landmark judgement empowers victims of antitrust infringements with the right to request ex novo documents, created by the defendants (C-163/21, PACCAR e.a.)
On 10 November 2022, the EU Court of Justice rendered another key judgment in relation to the series of damages proceedings brought in Spain against participants in the European Trucks Cartel. This judgment on the interpretation of Art. 5(1) of the Damages Directive clarifies the wide scope of evidence to which claimants can request access to substantiate potential damages claims. The judgment further strengthens the effectiveness of private enforcement of EU competition rules and should have a positive impact on the whole wave of compensation claims against truck manufacturers in Europe.
Assessing the compatibility of seemingly contradictory statistical evidence in the case of damage estimations (reflections on the article written by Peter Bönisch and Roman Inderst)
In a recent publication, Peter Bönisch and Roman Inderst tackle the delicate issue of the evaluation of seemingly contradictory econometric evidence. Introducing the concept of severity measures, they propose a method to avoid the common obstacles plaguing the interpretation of seemingly conflicting empirical evidence through the practical example of financial damage estimation in follow-on cases. This blog post discusses the ideas presented in the paper.