1. Introduction At the beginning of 2021, the sports leaders of some of the most influential clubs in Europe, led by the presidents of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta, announced the European Super League project. This international competition threatened to rival the well-known UEFA Champions League and disrupt the rigid […]
German Federal Court of Justice confirms factual assumption of harm in case of anticompetitive information exchanges and clarifies scope of liability in multi-product cartels
On 5 January 2023, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) published an important judgment in relation to follow-on damage actions relating to the so-called German drugstore products cartel (Case KZR 42/20). In its ruling, Germany’s highest civil court also confirmed a factual presumption of harm in the case of anticompetitive information exchanges. This is an important clarification as the BGH had thus far only acknowledged such factual presumption in cases of price-fixing and market-sharing practices. In addition, the BGH clarified that cartel participants are jointly and severally liable for damages caused in relation to products they do not manufacture themselves if they were aware that the anticompetitive practices extended to the other products.
Collective actions and claims aggregation in the Netherlands
This article continues the series on private enforcement in the Netherlands. New collective actions regime On 1 January 2020 the new collective actions regime in the Netherlands entered into force. Under the new regime, representative bodies can bring collective damage actions for monetary compensation including for damages caused by cartels and other anticompetitive conduct. Collective […]
First Italian judgment awarding damages against the European trucks cartel (Naples “Diego Armando Maradona” Stadium: Salernitana 1 – Juventus 0)
The trucks cartel fined by the European Commission in 2016 and 2017 triggered a wave of follow-on damage actions throughout the entire European Union. In Italy, after several legal actions having been launched by logistics associations and transport companies against the six sanctioned manufacturers, the Chamber of the Naples District Court specialised in business matters rendered the first judgment awarding damages in 2021.
Revival of the ‘claims assignment class action’ in German private antitrust enforcement (and beyond)
Corporate victims of anticompetitive practices by their suppliers regularly consider their possibilities to exercise their rights in the best interest of their company. On 13 July 2021, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) held that the ‘class action collection’ (Sammelklage-Inkasso) is permissible. Correcting a contrary trend followed by lower courts, the landmark AirDeal judgment of Germany’s supreme court fundamentally confirms the legality of the opt-in ‘assignment model’, i.e. the contractual transfer of claims for damages of numerous victims of the same infringement to a specialised third party for the purpose of bundling, analysis, and joint enforcement of these claims. This approach from a procedural economy perspective has become increasingly important all over Europe in recent years, especially for private antitrust cases due to a lack of effective collective redress mechanisms. In Germany, it has also been approved by a current reform of statutory law.