The past years have witnessed a rapid growth of private enforcement of competition law throughout Europe. Following the entry into force of the EU Damages Directive in 2016, the number of legal actions started by harmed competitors and customers against the fir (s) breaching competition rules have substantially increased. In particular, following the European Commission 2016 Decision sanctioning the cartel established by the major truck manufacturers in Europe, thousands of legal actions have started in the civil and commercial courts in Spain, Germany and other European countries.
These damages compensation actions, however, are usually started by individual firms ? i.e. SMEs that had previously purchased trucks from the cartelists. In other words, US-style antitrust class actions by harmed consumers are still not common in Europe. This enforcement scenario, however, might change in the near future: in transposing the Directive 2020/1828 on Collective Action Redress, Portugal and other EU Member States have extended the scope of the Directive to competition law.
Since the Directive entered into force only in June 2023, it is too early to understand its concrete effects on actions for collective redress in the field of competition law in Europe. Nevertheless, Directive is likely to further boost antitrust damages actions in certain European countries, like Portugal.
