Over the past fifteen years, the optimal enforcement of EU competition law has become a major concern. This book contains a unique collection of articles by lawyers and economists on current issues in the public and private enforcement of competition law. Public enforcement has been strengthened in numerous ways – for example, through the introduction of a leniency programme and a substantial increase in fines for competition law violations. At the same time the EU Commission has been promoting private enforcement – for example, by developing a legal framework that grants victims of EU antitrust law infringements access to compensation. The contributions in this book address a range of topics in the area of competition law enforcement, including the role of fines and leniency programmes in public enforcement; access to evidence and the quantification of damages in private enforcement; and the interaction between public and private enforcement of competition law in Europe.

This book scrutinizes legislative novelties and case law in the area of EU competition and state aid rules, focusing on the interaction between public and private enforcement of those rules. It is intended for scholars, stakeholders and anyone involved in the process of law enforcement – judges, attorneys at law, corporate lawyers and market participants. The book features contributions by prominent competition law scholars offering an academic analysis of the topics covered, and by several EU General Court judges, including its President, Mr. Marc Jaeger, providing first-hand information on the application of the EU competition rules in the General Court.

During the past decade, private enforcement of competition law has slowly taken off in Europe. However, major differences still exist among Member States. By harmonizing a number of procedural rules, the Damages Directive aimed to establish a level playing field among EU Member States. This timely book represents the first assessment of the implementation of the Damages Directive. Offering a comparative perspective, key chapters provide an up-to-date account of the emerging trends in private enforcement of competition law in Europe.

This book introduces the reader to key legal provisions and case-law related to the procedural and substantive issues that may arise in damages litigation for breach of anti-competitive agreements and abuses of a dominant position prohibitions. For the past decade, academic publications have focused on the proposal for a Directive on damages actions, then the Directive 2014/104/EU of 26 November 2014 itself, and finally the transposition texts. However, this understandable interest should not lead to overlook the fact that the Directive has been applied very little until now. This is mainly due to its application ratione temporis. In addition to the fact that Member States only transposed the Directive between the end of 2016 and 2018, Article 22 of the Directive provides that the substantive rules contained in the Directive cannot be applied to infringements subsequent to the national laws transposing them, while the procedural rules of the Directive apply to proceedings commenced on or after 26 December 2014. Thus, it is prior domestic law that continues to govern the vast majority of cases before national courts in the “Pre-Directive era.” In addition, a number of issues of the utmost importance have not been addressed by the Directive, such as questions of international jurisdiction or the quantification of “interests.” For these reasons, it seemed necessary not to limit this book to commenting on the Directive, important as it is, but to go beyond it. Directed by Rafael Amaro, this book contains the contributions from leading academics, attorneys, jurists and economists in the field of the private enforcement of competition law. It is composed of thematic chapters dealing with matters such as applicable law in international litigation, limitation, quantification of damages, from both a European Union and a national perspective, as well as national chapters presenting the state of play in several European States.

For the purposes of discussing the idea of a possible integration of public and private enforcement of competition law in the Europe it is useful, on the one hand, to perceive how the idea of private enforcement of EU competition law has developed over recent years and, on the other hand, to purport to provide a systematic and analytic understanding of the so called 'private enforcement' 'vis a vis' public enforcement of competition law, that has clearly represented the cornerstone of the EU system of competition law. That brief introductory overview, in turn, will lead us to perceive and critically debate three contrasting views that may currently be sustained in the context of the gradual, albeit so far very limited, emergence of forms of private enforcement of competition law in the EU. These, in short, correspond to the following: (i) A view sustaining a fully integrated framework of enforcement of competition law, integrating public and private enforcement techniques in a distinctively European way (basically different from the American way) and drastically reviewing the theories and/or foundations underlying enforcement of competition rules; (ii) A view sustaining a fully autonomous or independent system of private enforcement of competition law, largely based on adequate mechanisms that allow for collective redress for claimants with small and dispersed losses to recover damages for losses they have suffered on account of anticompetitive conduct; whilst admitting that such private enforcement based on collective redress may, in some limited forms, complement public enforcement of competition law (particularly as regards the so-called follow-on cases to which we shall refer infra), according to this view, private enforcement anchored in collective redress is basically independent of enforcement by public bodies and requires no coordination with that sphere of public enforcement; (iii) According to a third possible view, public enforcement of competition law is to remain a prevailing feature of the EU system of enforcement of competition rules and private enforcement may perform a strictly complementary and subsidiary role, which will require some forms of coordination between the two areas (but always keeping in mind the dominant role of the public sphere and without requiring a fundamental shift of the theories and/or foundations underlying enforcement of competition rules). This paper basically follows such third, alternative, view, for reasons that will be put forward throughout the paper (however briefly). The paper also deals, however briefly, with the rather protracted Commission Proposals presented on 11 June 2013 and leading to a new directive on private antitrust damage actions and a non-binding recommendation on collective redress mechanisms, covering beside infringements to competition law, relief for violations of consumer protection, environmental and other laws.

Private Enforcement of EU Law before National Courts successfully illustrates how legal actions brought by private parties can be instrumental in strengthening compliance with EU law. Through a detailed examination of selected EU legislation across the fields of procurement, intellectual property rights, consumer protection, and competition law, Folkert Wilman compares various remedies and procedures in which private parties have been utilised in the redress of grievances under EU law. An essential reference work for practicing lawyers acting before domestic courts in matters of EU Law, this timely publication offers new insights into private enforcement as a supplementary enforcement instrument, and offers clarity on how such a tool impacts on contractual remedies, procedural issues and the role of judicial review.

Private Enforcement of European Competition and State Aid Law Current Challenges and the Way Forward Edited by: Ferdinand Wollenschläger, Wolfgang Wurmnest & Thomas M.J. Möllers The overlapping European Union (EU) regimes of competition law and State aid law both provide mechanisms allowing private plaintiffs to claim compensation for losses or damages. It is thus of significant practical value to provide, as this book does, analysis and guidance on achieving enforcement of such claims, written by renowned authorities in the two fields. The book examines the two areas of law both from an EU perspective and from the perspectives of private enforcement in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom. In country reports for these major jurisdictions, as well as in more general and comparative chapters, the authors focus on such issues as the following: impediments to private enforcement; which entity is liable for damages; binding effect of decisions of competition authorities; limitation of actions; collective actions and pooling of claims; enforcement of the standstill obligation (Article 108(3) TFEU); remedies and information deficits; cooperation and coordination between national courts and the European Commission; transposition of the so-called Damages Directive (Directive 2014/104/EU) by the EU Member States; extent to which the strengthening of private enforcement of competition law has a spillover effect on State aid law; and prospects for harmonisation of State aid law. A concluding section identifies enforcement deficits and proposes ways to improve the existing legal framework. As an in-depth assessment of key obstacles and best practices in private enforcement actions, this highly informative and practical volume facilitates choice of the best forum for competition and State aid law cases. Academics and practitioners engaged with this important area of European law will appreciate the authors’ awareness of the economic need and legal particularities which could generate an effective European system of private enforcement of legitimate claims under EU competition and State aid law.