Leading by example: a case of effective private enforcement in England and Wales

In the recently published ICLG Guide on "Competition Litigation 2021," Scott Campbell and Luke Grimes set out how England and Wales (E&W) has grown to be the leading jurisdiction for the private enforcement of competition law in Europe, with claimants relying upon European Commission and National Competition Authority decisions to pursue damages claims in the English Courts on a regular basis.

In this chapter, they take stock of the landscape for litigating competition damages claims in E&W by reviewing enforcement mechanisms and seminal case-law:

  • Interlocutory jurisdictional challenges
  • Disclosure
  • The role of the Regulation
  • Quantification of damages
  • Collective redress
  • Funding with collective actions
  • CAT’s fast-track procedure of damages

Going forward, the changes introduced by the Damages Directive - and  implemented by the UK Damages Implementation Act - are set to remain after Brexit and may bear more interesting fruit in the longer term, given their temporal scope covering infringements from 9 March 2017 onwards. Whilst, to some extent, we have seen the procedural rules on disclosure at play in recent case-law some of the more substantive provisions, such as the suspension of limitation periods and the new rules on the burden of proof in respect of pass-on, are likely to assist and provide greater legal certainty to future claimants in E&W private enforcement proceedings.

Full chapter.

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