Global Competition Litigation Review, no.9, pp.88-95, 2016 (Peer-Reviewed Journal)
The award of punitive damages had been proposed by the Commission in the Green Paper as one of the measures to enhance private competition law enforcement in the EU. This proposal attracted widespread criticism from the interested stakeholders for serving deterrence and for trying to bring a US style litigation system to the EU. In light of this, later proposals of the Commission have taken two differing views: reject punitive damages completely or allow them in circumstances where victims need to be motivated to bring actions for damages due to the value of their losses. This article argues that the award of punitive damages is compatible with the goals of EU competition law provisions, however there are other policy issues that make its adoption undesirable. Therefore, other means, such as collective redress actions or funding mechanisms would be preferred to overcome the paucity of damages claims in courts.