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Proposal for Directive on Certain Rules Governing Antitrust
Damages Lawsuits
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Prof. Dr. H. Ercument Erdem
Introduction
The proposal for a Directive on certain rules governing lawsuits
for damages under national law for infringements of the competition
law provisions of the European Union (“EU”) and of the member
states (“Proposal for Directive”)
1
was adopted by the European
Parliament on April 17, 2014 and is expected to be approved in the near
future by the EU Council of Ministers. Once the Directive is adopted,
member states will have two years to implement the Directive’s provi-
sions into their national legal system.
Objective of the Proposal for Directive
The Proposal for Directive seeks to provide the victims of infringe-
ment of the EU competition rules full compensation for the harm they
suffered. Infringement of competition law is determined as the
infringement of Article 101 or 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of
the EU or of national competition law.
Also, the Proposal for Directive seeks to remove existing obstacles
in the member states which relate to: obtaining evidence, lack of effec-
tive collective redress mechanisms, the absence of clear rules on the
passing-on defense, bringing an action for damages, quantifying
antitrust harm, etc.
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NEWSLETTER 2014
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Article of April 2014
1
Please see.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2013:0404:FIN:
EN:PDF (Access: 29.04.2014).