Allocating Jurisdiction in Private Competition Law Claims within the EU

Abstract

This article demonstrates that the policies underlying EC competition law and EU private international law currently have a significant potential for conflict. This conflict is a result of a failure to adequately translate the ‘public’ nature of supranational EC Competition Law into the national context of ‘private’ forms of litigation. The conflict is explored in the context of the private litigation of cross border competition law disputes. It is suggested that whilst the conflict is unresolved the effective enforcement of EC competition law can not be assumed to follow naturally from either the current modernisation of EC competition law, or the provisions of the Commission's recent Green Paper concerning private damages actions for breach of competition law.