By February 2018, the vast majority (if not all) of Member States will have transposed the Directive 2014/104/EU on certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of the European Union. A number of Member States will have already dealt with concrete actions based on these new rules.

The seminar aims to assist national judges in their enhanced role in the context of damages actions by

(i) providing them with the necessary knowledge taken from the relevant case law;

(ii) presenting them with both the claimants’ and the defendants’ views in order to foster their understanding of the extent of the rights enshrined in the Directive;

(iii) and promoting active participation through group exercises.

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The first day will begin with a brief session on jurisdictional issues (e.g., jurisdiction clause, Regulation 1215/2012, transfer of claims, recent case law from the European Court of Justice, key national decisions) and will then focus on disclosure of evidence(e.g., proportionality test, protected information, order to produce information held by the defendant or third parties). It will conclude by addressing the issues related to the quantification of harm. The second day will first be dedicated to the issues related to the passing-on of overcharges (legal and economic aspects) and will then tackle various issues such as joint and several liabilities, consensual settlements, limitation periods and effects of national decisions.

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This seminar has been designed as a follow-up of all of the seminars that have been organised on the Directive 2014/104/EU. It will therefore provide advanced level training to national judges who are in charge of these issues.

The seminar is open to national judges, prosecutors, and apprentice judges working in one of the EU Member States dealing with competition cases at national level who:

  • deal with the review of the decisions adopted by national competition authorities;

or,

  • all final instance judges dealing with competition law, including antitrust and state aid.

In their application, applicants are invited to

(i) specify their previous awareness of the issues raised by damage claims litigation and

(ii) indicate whether they hold a position at first instance, second instance or final instance in their legal system.

A good command of English is a condition of registration.

Participation will be completely free of charge. The costs will be covered by EU and GVH funds.

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The national judicial training centres of the following countries have offered to directly participate in the selection of applicants: Croatia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Bulgaria. Please contact your national training centre for more information if you would like to register from any of these countries.

If your country is not listed above please send your registration form via email directly to Andrea Dalmay at the RCC (dalmay.andrea@gvh.hu).

One place will be reserved for one applicant from each EU Member State, but if free spaces remain these will be filled up irrespective of nationality. Applications will be judged on the basis of the individual applicant’s work experience and judicial tasks, as well as on the group’s composition as we would like to have a heterogeneous group in order to promote the exchange of ideas and experiences among participants.

The registration deadline is 05 January 2018. Applicants will be informed by 08 February 2018 if their registration has been accepted.

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Participants will be accommodated in Art’Otel Budapest which will also serve as the seminar’s venue. The event organisers will take care of the reservations and cover the costs of the accommodation for 3 nights on 22, 23, and 24 February 2018. Participants will be invited to a welcome dinner on 23 February and will receive lunch on 23 and 24 February.

Participants shall arrange their own travel and their travel costs (economy class) will be reimbursed by the event organisers after the seminar. The cost of local transportation (taxi, airport shuttle, public transport) and the cost of travel insurance will not be reimbursed.

Please note that a condition of reimbursement is actual participation in the entire seminar. If someone cannot participate for any reason whatsoever we cannot reimburse their costs.

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 Should you have any questions about the event, please contact Ms Andrea Dalmay 

(dalmay.andrea@gvh.hu, phone: +36-1-472-8880)

Please forward this announcement to your colleagues who may be interested in participating

EU funding