Towards a harmonised collective redress mechanism for the private enforcement of EU competition law (original) (raw)
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Antitrust: Antitrust Law & Policy eJournal, 2017
The article aims to compare and evaluate solutions with regard to compensatory collective redress existing in CEE countries. The author will attempt to illuminate obstacles and challenges to using collective redress as an avenue for antitrust enforcement in CEE countries, as well as possible advantages of the scrutinised legal frameworks. Besides focusing on national provisions, the article will draw on provisions of the Damages Directive and the Commission's Recommendation on collective redress mechanisms. It will open up the field for de lege ferenda proposals also. YEARBOOK of ANTITRUST and REGULATORY STUDIES www.yars.wz.uw.edu.pl Centre for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management www.cars.wz.uw.edu.pl Peer-reviewed scientific periodical, focusing on legal and economic issues of antitrust and regulation. Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Poland License. YEARBOOK OF ANTITRUST AND REGULATORY STUDIES 224 ANNA PISZCZ Résumé L'article vise à comparer et évaluer les solutions en matière de recours collectifs en indemnisation existant dans les pays d'Europe centrale et orientale («PECO»). L'auteur a pour le but de mettre en lumière les obstacles et les défis liés à l'utilisation des recours collectifs comme moyen d'application privée du droit de la concurrence dans les PECO, ainsi que les avantages éventuels des cadres juridiques examinés. L'article va se concentrer non seulement sur les dispositions nationales, mais aussi va s'inspirer des dispositions de la Directive Dommages et de la Recommandation de la Commission portant sur les mécanismes de recours collectifs. Cela ouvrira également le terrain pour des propositions de lege ferenda.
It is in general agreement that quite a number of competition law enforcement systems worldwide are based on two enforcement pillars namely public enforcement and private enforcement. While private enforcement is often treated as something new or at least marginally important in Europe, it has been the driving force of the United States antitrust enforcement since the middle of the 20th century. Free and undistorted competition is a core feature of the internal market and European Union more broadly, secured, inter alia, by the competition rules under articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty of Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which regulate the exercise of private market power. It therefore is in no doubt that while strengthening the enforcement of private rights is plausible, on the other hand it inevitably raises the question of how public and private enforcement can ideally be aggregated to achieve a welfare optimal outcome. Why not just have one system of enforcement? A question that will hopefully be answered at the end of this paper.
Package on Actions for Damages Based on Breaches of EU Competition Rules: Can One Size Fit All
2014
On 17 April 2014, the Proposal for a Directive on antitrust damages actions was accepted by the European Parliament and sent to the EU Council of Ministers for final approval. In addition, a Recommendation was adopted in 2013 on common principles for injunctive and compensatory collective redress mechanisms in the Member States to meet the need for a coherent European approach to antitrust private enforcement. This package comes at a time when private antitrust enforcement is rapidly evolving in a number of Member States. At the same time however, it establishes several legal solutions that do not fit well with existing national instruments. The aim of this article is to address, in particular, Portuguese and Polish experiences on a number of specific issues surrounding antitrust private enforcement, such as collective redress and contingency fees. Some doubts will also be raised concerning the solutions established in the European package, suggesting that national experiences should not be overlooked.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015
YEARBOOK of ANTITRUST and REGULATORY STUDIES www.yars.wz.uw.edu.pl Centre for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management www.cars.wz.uw.edu.pl Peer-reviewed scientific periodical, focusing on legal and economic issues of antitrust and regulation. Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Poland License. YEARBOOK OF ANTITRUST AND REGULATORY STUDIES 80 ANNA PISZCZ Directive's expected influence on both the thinking and practice of private antitrust enforcement in Europe. It is argued in conclusion that further harmonisation may be needed in order to actually transform private enforcement of EU competition law before national courts. Résumé Le 11 Juin 2013, la Commission européenne a adopté un train de mesures pour lutter contre l'absence de système efficace et cohérent d'application privée du droit de la concurrence dans l'UE et dans ses Etats membres. En particulier, un projet de la Directive relative aux actions en dommages a été proposé afin de répondre au besoin d'introduction d'une approche européenne à l'application privée du droit européen de la concurrence. La Directive relative aux actions en dommages a été finalement adoptée le 26 Novembre 2014. Cet article analyse certains aspects de l'application privée du droit de la concurrence qui n'ont pas reçu l'attention suffisante de la part du législateur européen durant les longs travaux préparatoires et législatifs qui ont précèdes l'adoption de la Directive. L'article aborde également certaines solutions qui n'ont pas été harmonisées et montre comment ces « lacunes » dans le processus d'harmonisation peuvent limiter l'influence de la Directive à la pratique et l'interprétation d'application privée du droit de la concurrence en Europe. En conclusion, l'article affirme que l'harmonisation plus profonde peut être nécessaire afin de transformer réellement l'application privée du droit européen de la concurrence devant les cours nationales.
Collective Redress: Broadening EU Enforcement through State Liability?
European Business Law Review
This article advances an argument that private enforcement of European Union (EU) rights has largely been stunted due to a series of blocking tactics by Member States, enabled through a form of tacitic subservience of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Currently, State Liability is neither an effective system of redress under tortious liability, nor a genuine enforcement mechanism in domestic law. By enabling collective redress in State Liability, we present an argument, missing explicitly in current literature, that both as a viable remedy through the (UK’s modified) tort of breach of statutory duty, and through granting effective redress through action by the EU Commission, State Liability will become the mechanism for corrective justice the Court of Justice envisaged in 1991. In 2011, the EU Commission issued a nonbinding Recommendation establishing collective redress for breach of competition law. Could this be seen as positive positioning by the EU to seize the initiat...
Statement of the European Law Institute on Collective Redress and Competition Damages Claims
2014
The European Law Institute (ELI) is an independent non-profit organisation established to initiate, conduct and facilitate research, make recommendations and provide practical guidance in the field of European legal development. Building on the wealth of diverse legal traditions, its mission is the quest for better law-making in Europe and the enhancement of European legal integration. By its endeavours, the ELI seeks to contribute to the formation of a more vigorous European legal community, integrating the achievements of the various legal cultures, endorsing the value of comparative knowledge, and taking a genuinely pan-European perspective. As such its work covers all branches of the law: substantive and procedural; private and public. The ELI is committed to the principles of comprehensiveness and collaborative working, thus striving to bridge the oft-perceived gap between the different legal cultures, between public and private law, as well as between scholarship and practice. To further that commitment it seeks to involve a diverse range of personalities, reflecting the richness of the legal traditions, legal disciplines and vocational frameworks found throughout Europe. The ELI is also open to the use of different methodological approaches and to canvassing insights and perspectives from as wide an audience as possible of those who share its vision.
Private Damages in EU Competition Law and Arbitration – A Changing Landscape 1
There are various obstacles within the Member States, which currently prevent, to a greater or lesser extent, the possibility to successfully obtain damages for harm caused by an infringement of the EU competition rules. The Private Damages Directive therefore sets out some minimum ground rules in order to level the playing field across the Member States with a view to making it easier to actually pursue such actions and claims successfully. The Directive also aims to regulate the interplay between public and private enforcement of European competition law in such a way that effective private enforcement will not undermine effective public enforcement. On a broader level, the Directive has incorporated specific provisions to promote the effective use of consensual dispute resolution as an alternative route to enabling the victims of EU competition law infringements to obtain compensation. This paper discusses the provisions of the Directive in terms of its potential impact on the use of arbitration to obtain private damages within the EU. It outlines and analyses the legislative framework in relation to the public and private enforcement of EU competition law within the EU, the possibility to arbitrate EU competition law infringements and arbitration of EU competition law in practice. In this context it also examines the pros and cons inherent to the regulatory framework established for the pursuit of private damages through litigation versus arbitration. It then outlines and discusses both the provisions of the Directive in relation to consensual dispute resolution and some of the most relevant and noteworthy other provisions of the Directive, in particular with regard to their potential impact on the arbitration of cases involving EU competition law infringements. Finally, the paper concludes on the potential for arbitration in the future and whether the Directive is likely to have much of an impact in this regard.
Social Science Research Network, 2017
The paper will focus on requirements and thresholds set for the judiciary by the Damages Directive. Answered will also be questions on the specialization of courts and its application in Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States of the EU, as well as on the involvement of national competition authorities (NCAs) in court proceedings. The paper provides also general thoughts regarding the specialization of courts and confronts them with the judiciary structure in CEE Member States in the context of private enforcement of competition law. While there is no uniform model of a judicial system, the paper provides a critical analysis of the centralization, specialization and decentralization of private enforcement models, taking into account also the importance of the training of judges. The YEARBOOK of ANTITRUST and REGULATORY STUDIES www.yars.wz.uw.edu.pl Centre for Antitrust and Regulatory Studies, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management www.cars.wz.uw.edu.pl Peer-reviewed scientific periodical, focusing on legal and economic issues of antitrust and regulation. Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 Poland License. YEARBOOK OF ANTITRUST AND REGULATORY STUDIES 32 ONDREJ BLAŽO relationship between NCAs and courts will be discussed whereby the role of NCAs in private enforcement defines the responsibility of the given public authority in private enforcement as a country's policymaker. Résumé L'article se concentre sur les exigences et les seuils fixés par la Directive Dommages pour le pouvoir judiciaire. Les réponses vont se focaliser également sur la spécialisation des tribunaux et son application dans les États membres d'Europe centrale et orientale (PECO) de l'UE, ainsi que sur la participation des autorités nationales de concurrence (ANC) aux procédures judiciaires. L'article fournit également des réflexions générales sur la spécialisation des tribunaux et les confronte à la structure judiciaire des États membres de l'Europe centrale et orientale dans le cadre de l'application privée du droit de la concurrence. Bien qu'il n'existe pas de modèle uniforme de système judiciaire, l'article fournit une analyse critique de la centralisation, de la spécialisation et de la décentralisation des modèles d'application privée du droit de la concurrence, en tenant également compte de l'importance de la formation des juges. La relation entre les ANC et les tribunaux sera examinée dans le contexte ou le rôle des ANC dans l'application privée du droit de la concurrence définit la responsabilité d'autorité publique comme un décideur politique national.
Private Damages in EU Competition Law and Arbitration: A Changing Landscape
There are various obstacles within the EU Member States, which currently prevent, to a greater or lesser extent, the possibility to successfully obtain damages for harm caused by an infringement of the EU competition rules. On 26 November 2014, an EU Directive on antitrust damages actions was adopted. This sets out some minimum ground rules in order to level the playing field across the Member States with a view to making it easier to actually pursue such actions and claims successfully. On a broader level, the Directive has incorporated specific provisions to promote the effective use of consensual dispute resolution as an alternative route to enabling the victims of EU competition law infringements to obtain compensation. This paper discusses the provisions of the Directive, in terms of its potential impact on the use of arbitration to obtain private damages within the EU. It outlines and analyses the existing legislative framework in relation to the public and private enforcement of EU competition law within the EU, the possibility to arbitrate EU competition law infringements and arbitration of EU competition law in practice. It then outlines and discusses both the provisions of the Directive in relation to consensual dispute resolution and some of its most relevant and noteworthy other provisions, in particular with regard to their potential impact on the arbitration of cases involving EU competition law infringements. Finally, the paper concludes on the potential for arbitration in this area in the future and whether the Directive is likely to have much of an impact in this regard. Directive 2014/104/EU on antitrust damages actions (2014)Council Regulation (EC) 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (the EC Merger Regulation) (2004)Case 102/81 Nordsee v Reederei Mond, European Court of Justice (1982)Case C-88/91 Federconsorzi, European Court of Justice (1992)Cases C-430/93 and C-431/93 Van Schijndel and van Veen v Stichting Pensioenfonds voor Fysiotherapeuten, European Court of Justice (1995)Case C-126/97 Eco Swiss China Time Ltd v Benetton International NV, European Court of Justice (1999)Mitsubishi Motors Corporation v Soler Chrysler Plymouth Inc, US Supreme Court (1985) © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the London Court of International Arbitration. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com