The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Thursday 18 April (Case C-605/21) that the former Czech regime introducing a limitation period for damages infringed EU competition law.
Czech company Heureka believes it has been wronged by Google , whose search engine systematically favours the Google Shopping price comparison tool to the detriment of its own price comparison portal. It is based on the European Commission’s decision (C(2017)4444) of June 2017, not yet final due to another pending case (C-48/22 P - see EUROPE 13326/13), which found instances of abuse of a dominant position by Google.
Following a reference for a preliminary ruling from the Czech courts, the CJEU ruled that EU law precludes the Czech legislation applicable until the late transposition by the Czech Republic of Directive 2014/104 specifying the rules governing the limitation period applicable to damages in the event of an infringement of competition law.
In the Court’s view, the TFEU (Article 102) already required, before the aforementioned directive came into force, that in order for the limitation period to start running, the infringement of competition law must have come to an end and that the injured party must have acquired knowledge of the information which is essential for bringing an action for damages, in particular the fact that the conduct concerned constitutes such an infringement.
These two conditions, the European Court added, are necessary to enable the person concerned to exercise his right to claim full compensation for the damage suffered as a result of an infringement of competition law. Czech law does not provide for these two essential conditions.
The Court stated that the information required to bring an action must be known from the date of publication in the Official Journal of the European Union of the summary of the Commission's decision finding the infringement, regardless of the fact that that decision has not yet become final. And the injured party can rely on such a non-final decision to support its claim for damages.
In addition, the Court noted that EU law also requires that it be possible to suspend or interrupt the limitation period during the Commission’s investigation in order to prevent the limitation period from running out even before that investigation is closed.
See the Court’s ruling: https://aeur.eu/f/buw (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)