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43 Int'l L. News 1 (2014)

handle is hein.journals/inrnlwnw43 and id is 1 raw text is: WINTER 2014 L~ hh._ VA P APAPP SECTION OF INTERtNATIONAL. Lxw WWW.AMERICANBAR.ORG/INTIAW Collective Redress in Cartel Damages Actions in Europe Light on the Horizon- Or Storm Brewing? By Ines Bodenstein, Alexander Fritzsche, Christian Steinle, and Stephan Wilske In recent years, follow-on cartel damages claims (that is, private claims follow- ing public proceedings) have attracted increasing interest from both potential plaintiffs and former cartelists among businesses in Europe. This, of course, includes U.S. businesses active in Europe. The process of cleaning up whole industry sectors-in some cases on a worldwide basis-spurred by the competi- tion authorities' leniency policies promoting disclosure in return for full or partial immunity, has produced heterogeneous groups of victims and alleged wrongdo- ers. Indeed, sometimes the same persons, companies, or groups can be both alleged victims and wrongdoers at the same time for different products. As a consequence, boards are faced with difficult decisions as to whether it is in their interests and those of their shareholders to seek redress from (former) business partners. At the same time, the general climate for competition litigation in Europe has changed considerably since the European Commission began actively pro- moting civil actions as a means of complementing competition law enforcement in the wake of a major 2004 reform. This development was continued on page 10