On 14 March 2019, the CJEU handed down a landmark judgment in the Skanska case. Following the opinion of AG Wahl, the CJEU found that the competition law concept of ‘undertaking’ is applicable as well in actions for damages for breaches of EU competition law. Consequently, each company that is part of the infringing economic unit can be […]
AG Wahl advises the CJEU following preliminary questions in a Finnish cartel damage case on the relationship between European law and domestic law in the private enforcement of competition law
In a recently published opinion in a Finnish cartel damage case, Advocate General (AG) Wahl discussed the important issue of the relationship between European competition law and private liability law (opinion delivered on 6 February 2019 in the case C-724/17). According to AG Wahl, liability for a breach of European competition law follows directly from European competition […]
Not outsourcing your antitrust damage claim – an efficient use of resources?
Is it an efficient use of resources for a company damaged by a cartel to pursue a claim on its own rather than outsourcing the enforcement to a third party with the special experience and expertise necessary to successfully pursue antitrust damage claims? Particularly for small to medium sized enterprises outsourcing is often the only […]
Scope of parental liability in the Finnish asphalt cartel case
The competition law community is awaiting the preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in relation to questions posed by the Finnish Supreme Court in the follow-on damages proceedings brought in the Finnish asphalt cartel case by the City of Vantaa against Skanska Industrial Solutions Oy, NCC Industry Oy and Asfaltmix Oy (Case […]
Review of economic publication ‘Cartel Dating’
The recent publication on the determination of the period of actual collusive effects by Boswijk, Bun, & Schinkel (“BBS”) is rather timely given the upsurge in private antitrust enforcement across Europe since the introduction of the EU Damages Directive (“Directive”) and its subsequent implementation into Member State law. Background – The Right to Full Compensation The Directive acknowledges the […]
A new specialised court in town: the Netherlands commercial courts
The Netherlands is an established jurisdiction for bringing European follow-on damages procedures. Examples include the Sodium Chlorate, Paraffin Wax and Truck cartel cases. Cartel-damages cases are perfect examples of international disputes in which either the claimant or defendant, or both parties, are foreign companies coming from several European Member States. To illustrate by an example, the Sodium Chlorate case started […]
Dutch Court accepts jurisdiction for damage claims of non-EU claimants and provides guidance on the interpretation of limitation periods
On 27 June 2018 the Dutch District Court of East Brabant rendered an interim judgment (ECLI:NL:RBOBR:2018:3170) on the limitation periods of damage claims initiated by a Turkish company Vestel Ticaret A.Ş. (Vestel) against various international companies which were members of the cathode ray tubes cartel (CRT Cartel). The Dutch Court accepted jurisdiction of the case as one […]
Clarifying the reasonableness test in the proposed guidelines of the European Commission on the passing-on of cartel overcharges
Virtually each dispute over claims for damages resulting from an infringement of competition law includes the question of how to deal with the fact that a direct purchaser from an infringer might have passed on all or part of the illegal overcharge to its own customers and thus, directly or indirectly, even down to the […]
TenneT vs ABB: The case and discussion about the passing-on defence continues
The discussion on the admissibility of the passing-on defence in the dispute between TenneT and ABB continued with the judgment of the Court of Appeal Arnhem-Leeuwarden (Gelderland) of 29 May 2018 (ECLI:NL:GHARL:2018:4876). The procedure concerns a follow-on damages action of the Dutch state-owned grid operator TenneT against ABB – and in a different procedure against […]
The compatibility of Irish rules on champerty and maintenance with the EU damages directive
On 17 February 2017, EU Directive 2014/104 (the “Directive”) was transposed into Irish law by the European Union (Actions for Damages for Infringements of Competition Law) Regulations 2017 (the “Implementation Act”). As widely acknowledged, the implementation of the Directive aims to facilitate the enforcement of claims for damages resulting from infringements of competition law before the courts of EU […]