The Escalators’ Series. Season: Private Enforcement. Episode: About the One that was not an Undertaking on the Relevant Market. Case Comment to Judgment of the Court of Justice of 12 December 2019, Case C-435/18

Abstract

This case-note offers comments to the judgement of the Court of Justice in another escalators’ case and its potential implications. Given that the preliminary questions rather entail obvious response, the ruling goes beyond expectations. Its reasoning is not based on the necessity to cope with specific national obstacles that was predominantly utilized in face of private enforcement cases. Instead the Court of Justice held that genuinely Article 101 TFEU implies that, probably, any injured party will be entitled to act as a claimant in damages litigation. No room for national legal specificities was left then. Furthermore, the case comment argues that its side back is more economic approach return to the mainstream debate. Aside these and other insights, some misgivings are presented in a context of a certain noticeable tendency in terms of the fashion in which the Court of Justice in genere handles with the cases.

Keywords

• damages
• private enforcement
• article 101 tfeu
• preliminary ruling
• competition law
• national civil law
• principle of effectiveness
• more economic approach