Indirect Purchasers, Passing-on and the New Directive on Competition Law Damages

"This article aims to analyse the stance taken, in this new regime of private competition law enforcement, with regard to the position of indirect purchasers who wish to bring an action for damages. The main focus will be on the rules of the new directive. The crucial question is whether the new regime brings improvement for indirect purchasers, in comparison to previous case law of the Court of Justice on the same subject? In other words, when the transposition period for the directive has expired, will indirect purchasers have better opportunities to claim access to court, to overcome the burden of proving causation or to battle the complexities of showing harm than they do today?

The structure of the presentation is as follows. Each of the three legal problems for indirect purchasers, as identified, is analysed in turn. The analyses begin by painting a picture of EU law as it seems to stand at present, and continue to examine the impact of the new regime. The findings are summarised in the final section on conclusions."