Minimum Damages under EU Law in Antitrust Damages Actions? Conclusions from the Recent Case Law of the German Supreme Court

The estimated damage cannot be less than 5% of the purchase price paid for reasons of effectiveness under EU law.” This was recently stated by the German Federal Court of Justice about claims for damages due to the Dieselgate scandal. However, the Court’s reasoning in favour of this legal lower limit for damages might equally, if not even more so, be applied to cartel damages claims – an analysis.

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German Federal Court of Justice confirms the claims assignment model in the Diesel emission case (and beyond)

On 13 June 2022, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) held that the claims assignment model (Sammelklage-Inkasso) is admissible for Swiss purchasers in the so-called Diesel scandal (see the Bundesgerichtshof’s press release of the same day). The decision is a further step after the landmark AirDeal judgment last year, in which the Bundesgerichtshof fundamentally acknowledged the collective opt-in assignment model, i.e. the transfer of claims for damages of numerous victims of the same infringement to a specialised third party for the purpose of bundling and joint enforcement of all claims. This approach from a procedural economy perspective has become increasingly important all over Europe in recent years, especially in competition law cases. In its Diesel emission case, the Bundesgerichtshof now confirms that the model is also open to purchasers from Switzerland.

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