The Effectiveness of Antitrust Collective Litigation in the European Union: A Study of the Principle of Full Compensation

Abstract

Policy preferences in the US shape private antitrust remedies in the form of deterrence; any compensation failures can be justified as long as the deterrent function is successful. In contrast, EU private antitrust enforcement seeks to ensure that anyone who has suffered harm from a violation of competition law can effectively exercise their right to claim full compensation; deterrence can be seen as a mere side effect. This paper will demonstrate that full compensation is unfeasible in practice, because compensating direct purchasers and indirect purchasers will inevitably fail to a greater or lesser degree. Second, it will show that the EU’s compensation-based mechanism, with a specific emphasis on full compensation, has more of a need for deterrence-based tools than the deterrence-focused mechanism of the US.