Claims for Damages Against Antitrust Infringements Under French Law

Abstract

When the “Ashurst Study on the conditions of claims for damages in case of infringement of EC competition rules” was published in 2004, it concluded that a "total underdevelopment" and an "astonishing diversity" in the approaches taken by different Member States were what characterised the status of private enforcement of competition law in the European Union. As a reaction to this conclusion, the European Commission published a White Paper on “Damages actions for breach of European Community antitrust rules” on 2nd April 2008. Together with its White Paper, the European Commission published a detailed Staff Working Paper, which provides the legal background, as well as an Impact Assessment Report, which contains an economic analysis of different potential private enforcement scenarios. In addition, an extensive economic study on the welfare impact of more effective private damage actions and, on 19th January 2010, an economic study on the quantification of antitrust damages were published on the European Commission’s website.