• Journal of Legislation Research
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• no.53
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• pp.525-551
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• 2017

This Article discusses the current trend of European competition damage actions focused on the recent Damage Directive and its transposition by the United Kingdom and Germany. The relevant Directive was signed into law in November 2014, and it requires the EU Member States to adopt certain measures to support competition damage actions. The required measures and principles by the Directive include right to full compensation, rebuttable presumption of harm, extensive disclosure of evidence, use of pass-on for defense and indirect purchaser suits. Although many Member States did not meet the deadline to transpose the Directive, the end of 2016, it is reported that 23 Member States have now, as of September 2017, made enactments according to the Directive. When we look at the transposition done by the United Kingdom and Germany, the revisions on their competition laws closely follow the contents of the Directive. However, it will take quite a long time before the amended provisions apply to actual cases since most of the new provisions apply to the infringement that take place after the date of the amendment. A similar situation regarding application time may happen in some other Member States. Furthermore, even if the terms of the competition laws of the Member States become similar following the Directive, the interpretations of the laws may differ by the courts of different countries. EU also does not have a tool to coordinate the litigations that are brought in different Member States under the same facts. It is true that the EU made a big step to enhance competition damage actions by enacting Damage Directive. However, it needs to take more time and resources to have settled system of competition private litigation throughout the Member States. Korea has also experienced increase in competition damage actions during the last fifteen years, and there have been some revisions of the relevant fair trade law as well as development of relevant legal principles by court decisions. Although there are some suggestions that Korea should have more enactments similar to the EU Directive, its seems wiser for Korea to take time to observe how EU countries actually operate competition damage actions after they transposed the Directive. Then, it will be able to gain some wisdom to adopt competition action measures that are suitable for Korean legal system and culture.