Germany's Top Civil Court Sets The Rules For Mass Competition Claims

What happens when a single lawsuit bundles 70,000 individual antitrust damages claims? Germany's Federal Court of Justice has now answered that question, with important implications for competition litigation and litigation funding alike.

On 12 May 2026, the Cartel Senate of the German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) (Bundesgerichtshof) handed down its long-awaited judgment in case KZR 6/24, setting out the ground rules for mass antitrust damages actions brought by debt collection companies. The decision confirms that bundling assigned claims in a single lawsuit is permissible in principle. However, the FCJ draws clear lines where the sheer volume of claims threatens to overwhelm the courts and where conflicting interests between assignors or with a litigation funder may arise.