COMPARATIVE STUDY ON CLASS ACTIONS IN COMPETITION LAW INFRINGEMENTS

Effective enforcement of competition law provisions represents a guarantee of well functioning markets. In order to achieve this, Europe used the US model and put a greater emphasis on what we name the private enforcement of competition law. Nowadays many of the EU Member States offers legal mechanisms to individuals that can claim damages for losses suffered as an effect of anticompetitive behaviours. General collective redress mechanisms (for all kind of damages suffered by consumers) are available in 16 EU Member States, while specialised collective redress mechanisms in competition matter are in force in 11 of the EU Member States. Taking into consideration this reality EU officials had a constant concern in recent years for developing uniform standards for this area at the level of the Union. The paper at hand presents the general characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of class actions in general and in competition matter, in special, followed by a short presentation of the collective redress mechanisms available in competition matter in three of the EU Member States: UK (England and Wales), Italy and Spain. Finally, the paper presents some of the major efforts made by the European legislator in the last years, in order to ensure uniformity between national legislations in what regards collective redress mechanisms in the benefit of European consumers.