The EU Rules on Jurisdiction for and the Law Applicable to, Follow-on, and Stand-alone Damages Following Competition Infringement

Extract

I. Introduction

Articles 101–102 TFEU themselves assign jurisdiction and regulate applicable law in competition matters at the level of the regulatory assessment and enforcement by public authorities. The European competition authorities only have jurisdiction (and even then not always, as readers of this journal will be all too aware), and EU competition law¹ only applies when the actions concerned have a(n) (potential) impact on the trade between the Member States.

In the current article, I do not however discuss this issue of allocation to competition authorities. Neither shall I directly discuss the private international law implications of the ‘damages’ Directive 2014/104.² Instead, I give an overview³ of jurisdictional and applicable law issues in the so-called ‘follow-on’ (if there has been a competition authority finding of infringement) or ‘stand-alone’ suits (in the absence of such finding) seeking compensation for the infringement of competition law.

II. Jurisdiction and forum shopping

To appreciate the application of jurisdictional rules in this sector, it is important to underline that in European private international law in a drive initiated by the European Commission (EC) however with support of the Member States, forum shopping is generally viewed with suspicion. This is clearest in the European Insolvency Regulation⁴ however it also transpires in the general approach of the Brussels Ia Regulation.⁵