Green paper - Damages Actions for Breach of the EC Antitrust Rules

Orgalime has come to the conclusion that the current Green Paper puts into question the existing system of enforcing Community rights and that it entails the risk of introducing more litigation in Europe.

Orgalime is of the opinion that the existing system of enforcing community rights should not be changed for rights derived from community antitrust rules. We also fear that more court actions would increase chances of divergent decision-making between competition authorities and civil courts with obvious negative implications for the internal market and the ability of companies to compete in a global environment. The increased litigation would neither serve public interest nor companies that, due to increased uncertainty, would avoid new forms of innovative and pro-competitive behaviour to the detriment of their competitiveness.

We truly believe that the EU should take stock of the US experience by not changing its enforcement system to one that the US has adopted and is now in the process of making a U-turn.  The introduction of a US-style litigation culture in Europe would only be to the detriment of the competitiveness of European manufacturing and service providers.

References: COM (2005) 672 final