This Casenote summarizes the result of a quantitative study of the European Commission’s cartel enforcement activities over the decade from 2010 to 2019. The data used are the published prohibition and settlement decisions of the Commission for horizontal agreements (cartels) which infringed Article 101 of the Full treaty of the European Union (TFEU).
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New from Oxford University Press
A groundbreaking practical guide for lawyers, judges, and economists to a rapidly emerging area of law – cartel damages
Undertakes an extensive survey and synthesis of the literature on the economics and measurement of cartel damages
Provides an integrated treatment of the applicable law and the ‘pragmatic approach’ to the quantification of damages of competition law damages
The law and methods of quantifying damages are explained using the judgments in decided cases, and practical examples drawn from expert reports and academic research.
Introduction to my Cartel Damages book
Reviews
Cartel Damages is a magisterial synthesis of the economics of cartel overcharges and antitrust litigation in the UK and European courts. Dr. Veljanovski has provided a thoughtful and up-to-date review of the challenges and intricacies facing experts who engage in antitrust damages actions in Europe.
Professor John M. Connors
Purdue University and American Antitrust Institute
“Cartel Damages: Principles, Measurement and Economics is an excellent and comprehensive guide to the quantification of cartel damages claims under EU and UK law. It is written by a leading economist who has considerable experience of giving expert evidence in competition cases as well as of teaching law and economics. His detailed treatment of this subject successfully encompasses both disciplines with great clarity. It is destined to become a standard guide to this subject and will undoubtedly be extensively used by legal practitioners, economists and judges. It is unreservedly recommended.”
Aidan Robertson QC
Brick Court Chambers; Visiting Professor, University of Oxford
"This book is the first comprehensive, practical textbook on cartel damages in the EU and the UK. It covers the key legal principles and provides an essential guide to the economic methodologies employed to calculate damages in cartel cases. ... It is also very effective at grounding its content in practical examples and the latest case law. I would highly recommend this book to a wide range of readers, including lawyers, in-house counsel and economics consultants working in this area, judges who are likely decide on such cases, and academics researching the private enforcement of competition law. Although the book focuses on the EU and the UK, the key issues and methodologies for calculating damages will be highly relevant to readers across many other jurisdictions."
Professor Andreas Stephan
University of East Anglia
CARTEL BRIEFS
Short commentaries on recent developments
This chapter sets out the principles and emerging practice governing cartel damages in the EU and UK. It identifies the types of damages available; the issue surrounding causation, pass-on, volume …
Some legal academics have claimed that ‘machine collusion’ – tacit collusion generated by self-learning pricing algorithms without human involvement – is a real threat that will go uncheck by current …
The case for a greener antitrust is weak and flawed. Its proponents claim that the European Commission’s enforcement of Article 101 TFEU blocks efficient industry-initiated cooperation to improve sustainability. But …
Enforcement activity and fines were substantially lower than in previous years. The European Commission completed two investigations comprising three cartel infringements. Aggregate fines of €279 million were imposed. Without leniency and settlement discounts the fines would have been about €654 million i.e., 2.4 times larger than the fines paid. The Commission issued one Statement of Objections and re-adopted one decision which substantially reduced the fine due to its procedural failure to take account of the addressee’s inability to pay.
This paper provides an overview of recent developments in algorithmic antitrust, and the economics and legal issues raised in the areas of abuse of dominance, algorithmic pricing and collusion, and …
This paper undertakes a critical review of the prospect that self-learning pricing algorithms will lead to widespread collusion independently of the intervention and participation of humans. There is no concrete …
This article looks at the relationship between the environment and competition law. It shows that cooperative agreements in industries where there are significant pollution or open access resources such as …
BritNed v ABB [2018] EWHC 2616 (Ch) is the first and only decided cartel damages case in England. Briefly, BritNed was a follow-on action based on the European Commission’s Power Cables (Case …
How the ‘principle of effectiveness overrides domestic laws and causation in cartel damage cases It is received legal wisdom that establishing causation is key to a damage claim, that …
The Court of Appeal in BritNed v ABB [2019] EWCA Civ 1840 has again had to clarify the principles governing competition damages. It reaffirmed the English High Court’s rejection of the claimant’s …
Cartels in industries with significant environmental problems – which produce economic ‘bads’ rather than goods – can have beneficial effects. Restricting the output of an economic bad is good.
BritNed v. ABB [2018] EWHC 2616 (Ch) is the first English cartel damages judgment, and the first to consider margin, cost and econometric approaches to the quantification of damages. The judgment …
BritNed v. ABB [2018] EWHC 2616 (Ch) is the first English cartel damage judgment and the first to consider an econometric approach to overcharges. The court rejected the claimant’s econometric analysis …
Case’s Annual Review: January 2020 European cartel fines in 2019 Summary The European Commission completed three investigations comprising five cartel infringements. Aggregate fines of €1,469 million were imposed after leniency …