Mette Alfter of Frontier today spoke at the competition law forum (Forum Kartellrecht) in Münster. Mette was part of a panel which discussed implementing the European Commission’s Directive on antitrust damages actions into German Cartel Law, and its practical challenges.

Member States are obliged to implement the legal instruments of the Directive (2014/104/EU) into national law by December 2016. The Directive grants claimants the right to full compensation for any harm caused to them by an infringement of EU antitrust rules.

At the conference, Dr. Armin Jungbluth from the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy reported on the current status of the draft legislation. The economists on the panel largely agreed that the Directive’s orders to include presumptions on the amount of damage caused by an antitrust infringement and on pass-through between direct and indirect claimants is problematic, and needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Frontier regularly advises clients on competition issues across Europe.

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