We are excited that the September issue of Class Action, our quarterly newsletter reporting on developments in regulatory investigations and class actions, included an article from leading international law firm, SJ Berwin, with whom King & Wood Mallesons will officially combine on 1 November 2013, building on the success of our combination with King & Wood in 2012.
Sarah Turnbull, Adèle Behles and a team from SJ Berwin discuss the key developments in the sphere of collective competition actions within the EU and other proposed developments for competition damages actions. While companies currently face the possibility of damages proceedings for competition law breaches in national courts in the European Union, private enforcement actions remain infrequent in Europe when compared with the US. A number of recent proposals to enhance the ability of claimants to seek “collective redress” are intended to address this situation and provide a greater role for private enforcement whilst guarding against the perceived excesses of US litigation.
In Australia to date, there have only been a small number of follow-on cartel class actions, despite the class action regime now having been in force 21 years and only limited private enforcement actions. This may, however, change given a newly emboldened ACCC with an increased appetite for litigation.
Read the complete article here.
Photo credit: Moyan_Brenn_BACK_FROM_ICELAND / Foter / CC BY
