The respondent company (MC) had disclosed to the European Commission its own historical involvement in unlawful price-fixing cartels. Other members, but not MC received fines. The claimants (DB) sought damages for their losses arising from the cartel, but their claims were deemed out of time. The claimants appealed.
Held: The appeal succeeded. The issue was one of domestic law, being a claim was for private law damages, and was not unrelated to the penalties or fines which sanction breaches of European law; section 47A was a domestic provision regulating limitation, a matter left to domestic law. The statutory references to a ‘decision’ establishing that the prohibition ‘has been infringed’ was quite general in their natural and ordinary meaning, and did not refer to ‘a decision against, or as regards, a particular party or particular addressee of the Commission Decision’.
Practical considerations also militated in favour of this interpretation. It was more sensible that any follow-on claim should be postponed until the final decision on infringement was known, ‘so that all questions of causation, quantum and contribution could be resolved at the same time’.
Judges:
Mummery, Etherton and Sullivan LJJ
Citations:
[2012] EWCA Civ 1055, [2013] Bus LR 125
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal From – Deutsche Bahn Ag and Others v Morgan Crucible Company Plc and Others CAT 25-May-2011
. .
Cited by:
Appeal from – Deutsche Bahn Ag and Others v Morgan Advanced Materials Plc SC 9-Apr-2014
The Court was asked whether claims against MAM for losses suffered by reason of a cartel infringing article 81(1) TEC (now article 101 TFEU) were time-barred, and also as to substantive questions about the nature of the decisions of the European . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
European, Commercial, Limitation
Updated: 04 November 2022; Ref: scu.463423