by Philipp Werner and David Henry
The European Union’s top court rules that a national law which requires the consent of all parties before access to the file is given to third-party antitrust damages claimants is incompatible with EU law; a national court must be able to decide on disclosure weighing up the interests in doing so.
To read the full article, click here.
by Philipp Werner and David Henry
The European Union’s top court rules that a national law which requires the consent of all parties before access to the file is given to third-party antitrust damages claimants is incompatible with EU law; a national court must be able to decide on disclosure weighing up the interests in doing so.
To read the full article, click here.
by Philip Bentley and Philipp Werner
A judgment of the EU General Court in March 2011, upheld on appeal by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on January 22, 2013, is potentially good news for parent companies. Where both a parent company and its subsidiary bring separate court challenges against a cartel fine for which they were held jointly and severally liable, the parent company should benefit from any reduction in fine that the court grants to the subsidiary, provided that the challenges brought by the two companies have the “same object”.
In light of these judgments, it would appear that a parent company’s argument should be similar to that adopted by its subsidiary when challenging a fine imposed jointly and severally on both of them. At the same time, the parent company may wish to contest the fact that it was held jointly and severally liable for the subsidiary’s infringement. This would require the parent to demonstrate that it did not exercise a “decisive influence” over the subsidiary’s commercial policy. Reconciling this latter argument with a challenge to the subsidiary’s fine is, however, likely to require skilful drafting of the parent company’s pleadings.
To read the full article, click here.
by Philipp Werner and Wilko van Weert
On 13 December 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) held that national competition authorities (NCAs) can apply European competition rules, and fine companies for an infringement of EU rules, even in cases where the European Commission considers that Article 101(1) Treaty on the functioning of the European Union (TFEU) is not applicable.
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by Louise Aberg, Lionel Lesur and Philipp Werner
On November 6, 2012, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that the European Commission was entitled to represent the European Union in an action for damages before national courts. The CJEU ruled that the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union did not prevent the Commission from taking an action for damages against the cartel participants for harm suffered by the European Union as a result of anti-competitive behavior that the Commission had already sanctioned by rendering an infringement decision. Companies should therefore bear in mind that the Commission is no longer just the investigator, prosecutor and judge of a cartel, but also a potential damages claimant.
To read the full article, click here.
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