Significant amendments to Austrian Competition Law - Part III (Damages Directive)

For "Part I - Overview" click here

For "Part II - Merger Control" click here

On 6 April 2017 the Austrian Parliament implemented the Damages Directive (2014/104/EU) ("Directive") by adopting an amendment to the Austrian Cartel Act ("KartG"). The rules will become effective retroactively from 27 December 2017, which was the deadline for transposing the Directive into national law.

Competition law traditionally has been enforced by public authorities, ie the European Commission and National Competition Authorities. However, the European Commission has taken a policy decision to also foster private enforcement, in particular through private damages claims of undertakings that have suffered harm from competition law infringements. What started with EU case law (BRT v Sabam in 1974, Courage and Crehan in 2001) has led the European Commission to adopt a Green Paper in 2005 and a White Paper in 2008 on this very topic, which in turn resulted in the adoption of