ICC Comments on the Commission’s Green Paper on damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules

Prepared by the Commission on Competition

ICC welcomes the opportunity to comment on the Commission’s Green Paper on damages actions for breach of the EC antitrust rules (the Green Paper). Further, ICC is happy to see that the Commission’s ultimate objective with initiating a debate on private enforcement is to “foster a competition culture, not a litigation culture”. ICC fully agrees with this highly important policy statement and would like to stress that the issue of private enforcement needs to be addressed with the outmost care in order to avoid the very litigation culture that concerns the Commission as well as ICC.
This paper will first state ICC’s general comments and concerns in respect of the Green Paper and will then give ICC’s main comments on the specific questions raised by the Commission.