I signaled the preliminary reference and background here and Kokott AG Opined end of September in C‑393/23 Athenian Brewery SA, Heineken NV v Macedonian Thrace Brewery SA.
Can a person damaged by an infringement of the competition rules sue the company which committed that infringement at the seat of its parent company in another Member State?
The case clearly has echoes of the economic unit theory in EU competition law see eg ENI. On the other hand the CJEU in a MOL v Mercedes Benz, in a judgment issued before the Opinion, did not resort to the economic unit theory in the inverse sense, holding that a mother corporation cannot simply claim its registered office as locus damni in Article 7(2) Brussels Ia jurisdiction when one of its subsidiaries suffered damage resulting from a breach of competition law. (The AG in Athenian Brewery only refers to the Opinion of Emiliou AG in MOL).
(37) ff the AG points to Article 8(1)’s condition of joinders being possible of there is a risk of irreconcilable judgments arising from diverging judgments on the same situation of law and fact, existing in all likelihood where mother and daughter have both been found to have infringed competition law. However less clear (41) is
whether a close connection within the meaning of Article 8(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation may be present even if the joint liability of the parent company and the subsidiary for the infringement has not yet been established. This may arise in particular in the case of stand-alone actions, which, unlike follow-on actions, cannot be based on a (binding) decision of a competition authority, be this the Commission (Article 16(1) of Regulation No 1/2003) or a national authority (Article 9 of Directive 2014/104).
(43) ff
“the fact in support of the presumption of control that the parent company holds (almost) all of the capital in the subsidiary is such a strong indication of the existence of a close connection between the actions directed against the parent company and the subsidiary for the purposes of Article 8(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation that no further evidence of the existence of that close connection is usually required (see in this regard section a). That interpretation does not infringe the requirement as to the foreseeability of the court having international jurisdiction… What is more, it ensures the practical effectiveness of Article 8(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation without leaving open the possibility of the applicant’s being accused of abusive behaviour…”
The AG explains all these elements in turn and I agree with her analysis. (60) for instance she supports the ‘good forum shopping’ implications of the anchor defendant mechanism:
It is not a circumvention of the rule of jurisdiction for the injured party to sue the Greek subsidiary too in the place where the Netherlands parent company is domiciled and thereby to remove the former from the jurisdiction of the Greek courts. If, after all, the defendants are domiciled in different Member States, Article 8(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation allows the applicant to select the place before the courts of which it brings its claim. That freedom of choice includes the possibility for the applicant to bring the dispute only before the court that best suits its interests.
I do wish the CJEU would also recognise the alternative: the misuse of forum shopping using A7(2)’s forum delicti rule, by corporations committing infringement of competition law, as I discuss ia here.
Geert.
EU Private International Law, 4th ed. 2024, 2.516.
