The White Paper on damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules

Abstract

The White Paper is the latest stage of a policy initiative, the premises of which were already laid down in Regulation 1/2003 that stressed the essential role of national courts in the application of the EC competition rules, for example by awarding damages to the victims of infringements (3). Given the importance of the right to damages in order to guarantee the effectiveness of the EC competition rules, as acknowledged by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) (4), and in view of the considerable hurdles faced by the victims wishing to exercise their rights in Europe (5), the Commission adopted in December 2005 a Green Paper (6) that identified potential ways forward.