Research project

Investigator:
Odysseas Repousis

Abstract:
Whereas the United States has a robust antitrust class action regime, European states and the United Kingdom are still working on establishing and developing this body of law. And whilst all EU Member States have now transposed into domestic law the EU Directive on Antitrust Damages Actions (which enables private antitrust enforcement proceedings against the infringing parties), the same does not hold true for mechanisms of collective redress for antitrust claims, which remain significantly different between EU Member States and the United Kingdom. To take but one example, in 2015, the United Kingdom introduced antitrust opt-out claims (i.e. claims that may be brought on behalf of all those who fall within a defined class of claimants unless they take affirmative steps to opt out). This collective redress mechanism is designed to offer a more effective route to compensation for consumers and businesses for breaches of EU and UK competition law. It bears noting that the opt-out system has existed in the US since 1966. However, close to five years from the introduction of that regime, the UK courts have been preoccupied with class certification issues, and no case has moved past that phase. In fact, the pilot case, Mastercard, a case that has been brought in the name of 46 million UK consumers for claims arising out of the unlawful fees imposed on transactions processed through Mastercard‘s network, is currently pending before the UK Supreme Court. Across Europe, antitrust class actions, and the antitrust collective action regime more generally, are still in a nascent state. At the same time, an ever increasing number of antitrust class action suits relating to the same infringement or cartelists’ behavior are litigated in parallel in the United States, the United Kingdom and other European states, mainly due to the fact that the advanced European markets are often the epicenter of the infringing conduct. Setting out from the above, this project comparatively examines the antitrust collective redress mechanisms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe with the view of setting out the state of play, discussing recent developments and assessing the steps that ought to be taken to more actively promote the exchange of knowledge between US and European lawyers, policymakers, and adjudicators.