Since the beginning of this century, there has been increased focus on ways to enforce competition law under private law. As a result, the Directive 2014/104/EU on damages for infringements of the EU competition law provisions was adopted in 2014 (‘the Directive’). Some of the provisions of the Directive constitute a codification of the case law of the Court of Justice up to that point.

Within the European Union, there are three preferred jurisdictions in which to conduct proceedings relating to the recovery of antitrust damages: the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands. The UK has recently become less appealing due to the great uncertainty associated with Brexit. This leaves the Netherlands and Germany as prima candidates.