EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS

Prague, Czechia

EU ANTITRUST: HOT TOPICS & NEXT STEPS 2022

5. Conclusion In any event, it should be emphasised that the Court’s judgment in Volvo (C 30/20) provides useful guidance for injured parties as to the specific court in which they can bring an action for breach of competition law. It is clear that this guidance can also be used by the parties to the anticompetitive practice, allowing them to anticipate in which court they may be sued. It is thus undoubtedly another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that contributes to the predictability of the private enforcement of competition law. The Volvo judgment established a cascade (cascading sequence) for determining local jurisdiction under Article 7(2) of the Brussels Regulation Recast. In the first place, it examines whether a Member State regulates in its legislation the exclusive (causal) jurisdiction of courts in disputes arising out of an infringement of competition law. If exclusive (causal) jurisdiction has not been introduced in the Member State, it must be established whether or not the goods affected by the anticompetitive practice were acquired only within the jurisdiction of one court and, if so, whether or not that court will have local jurisdiction to hear and decide the dispute. However, if the goods at hand were acquired in several different places within the jurisdiction of several courts, the court in whose jurisdiction the injured party is domiciled shall be the court that has local jurisdiction. I must say, however, that I have serious doubts about the appropriateness of the last criterion of the cascade, as I explained in part 3 of the paper. The third criterion clearly bends the long-standing, traditional principles of private international law in the name of promoting the private enforcement of competition law in favour of the injured parties. I am of the opinion that this may lead to unreasonable results, generally in any tort disputes that are way beyond the field of private enforcement of competition law. References [1] Lein, E. (2015). Commentary on Article 7(2) of the Brussels Regulation Recast. In Dickinson, A., Lein, E. (eds.). The Brussels I Regulation Recast. Oxford: Oxford Uni versity Press, pp. 132 and 156. [2] Barennes, M. (2021). The Volvo Judgement in Case C-30/20: the Place Where the Dam age Occurred in Follow-on Cartel Damages Claims. In: Kluwer Competition Law Blog [online]. [cit. 2022-01-16]. Available at: http://competitionlawblog.kluwercompeti tionlaw.com/2021/07/22/the-volvo-judgment-in-case-c-30-20-the-place-where-the damage-ccurred-in-follow-on-cartel-damages-claims/. [3] Commission Decision of 27 September 2017, Trucks (Case AT.39824), C/2017/6467. [4] Judgment of the Court of Justice of 21 May 2015, Cartel Damage Claims (CDC) Hydrogen Peroxide SA (C-352/13), EU: C:2015:335, paras 44–54.

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