EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

thus agreed with the suggestion made by the Advocate General, Mr Jean Richard de la Tour (see Opinion of AG de la Tour, para 46), who referred in that regard, inter alia , to the 1979 Report by Mr Jenard on the Brussels Convention of 1968 (see OJ EC C 59, 1979, p. 22). In the same breath, however, the Court stated that the determination of the perimeter of the court, in which the place where the damage occurred is situated pursuant to Article 7(2) of the Brussels Regulation Recast, falls in principle within the organisational competence of the Member State to which that court belongs. For that reason, that provision does not preclude a Member State from deciding to entrust a particular type of litigation to a single court in its territory which will have exclusive (causal) jurisdiction to hear and determine those disputes, irrespective of the place where the damage occurred in that Member State. It is therefore the exclusive prerogative of the Member States to choose which court has exclusive (causal) jurisdiction in competition law matters. In support of that proposition, the Court stated that it may be justifiable, in the interests of the proper administration of justice, to concentrate certain types of litigation in a single specialised court. It also relied on a suggestion by the Advocate General, who argued that the technical complexity of litigation in the private enforcement of competition law may also argue in favour of the introduction of concentration in a single specialised court. If a Member State whose courts have international jurisdiction under Article 7(2) fails to establish a specialised court with exclusive (causal) jurisdiction to hear and decide disputes arising out of an infringement of competition law, then it must determine which court of that Member State has local jurisdiction, considering the place where the damage occurred. Such a determination must, of course, be consistent with the objective of proximity and sound administration of justice. In that regard, the Court, relying on its previous judgment in the Verein für Konsumenteninformation case, ruled that the place where the damage occurred is the place where the goods were acquired (purchased). According to the Court, that rule must be applied irrespective of whether the goods affected by the anticompetitive practice were purchased directly or indirectly from the defendants, and irrespective of whether the purchase resulted in an immediate transfer of ownership of those goods or whether the transfer took place only after the lease contract had ended. The only catch in such a determination of local jurisdiction is that the goods had to be acquired (purchased) in the district of only one court. Otherwise, it would not be possible to identify only one place where the damage occurred in relation to the injured party, as there would be more than one such place and it would therefore not be possible to determine the court with local jurisdiction.

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