Trucks cartel: first Milan judgment on antitrust damage claims
Introduction On 11 January 2026, the Court of Milan, Business Section A (the ‘Court’), delivered a significant ruling[1] in follow-on antitrust damages litigation brought by 18 transport companies against Iveco and the other major truck manufacturers MAN, DAF, Scania, Mercedes-Benz (Daimler), and Volvo/Renault. The case stems from the European Commission’s (‘Commission’) landmark decision (the ‘EC Decision’)[2] finding that these manufacturers participated in a long-running Europe-wide cartel between 1997 and 2011, coordinating gross list prices and the timing of the introduction of new emission technologies (‘Trucks cartel’). The Court’s judgment adds an important chapter to the growing body of national litigation arising from the Trucks cartel and offers valuable insights into the evolving landscape of private antitrust enforcement in Italy. Chronology of the proceedings Filing of the claim On 5 October 2017, a group of transport companies filed a claim before the Court against Iveco, seeking compensation for damages caused by its participation in the Trucks cartel. The claimants, having purchased medium and heavy trucks from manufacturers involved in the infringement, alleged that they had suffered substantial harm as a result of the established anticompetitive conduct. In particular, they sought compensation for (i) the overcharge paid on the purchase of trucks as a result of the coordination of gross list prices, and (ii) the harm arising from the coordinated delay in introducing new emission technologies (EURO 3 to 6), which allegedly deprived them of the opportunity to acquire vehicles equipped with the most advanced emission standards available at the time. Overall, the total damage claim amounted to more than €5 million. Defence and preliminary objections In its defence, Iveco requested authorisation to summon the other members of the Trucks cartel as third parties in the proceedings. Furthermore, Iveco raised several preliminary and substantive objections, including: statutory limitation defences; challenges to the applicability and retroactive effect of Directive 2014/104/EU on antitrust damages[3] and its Italian implementing legislation (Legislative Decree No. 3/2017)[4]; requests for referrals to the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Italian Constitutional Court; objections to the evidentiary value of the EC Decision; and arguments contesting both the existence of an overcharge and the claimants’ passing-on of that overcharge to their own customers. Third-party summons and limitation ruling The other parties raised similar objections, particularly concerning the statute of limitations and the lack of proof of actual impact on final net prices. On 24 May 2021, the Court issued a partial judgment which rejected the limitation objection, ruling that the limitation period had not expired. This judgment was confirmed by the Milan Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court of Cassation and has therefore become final. Scania-related claims Initially, the Court separated claims related to Scania trucks because Scania had appealed the Commission’s findings. Once the General Court[5] confirmed the decision against Scania in 2022, these claims were rejoined in the main proceedings. Expert assessment The proceedings then moved into the evidentiary phase. The Court required a court-appointed expert assessment (Consulente Tecnico d’Ufficio, ‘CTU’) to assist in the technical and economic evaluation of the claims. The CTU was tasked with determining (i) whether and to what extent the Trucks cartel influenced the net purchase prices of vehicles acquired by the claimants; (ii) whether and to what extent the cartel caused an overcharge on the final purchase price of the trucks concerned; (iii) which specific vehicles fell within the infringement or its subsequent lingering period; (iv) whether the overcharge was passed on to downstream customers and, if so, to calculate the potential loss of profits resulting from it; and (v) whether the delay in the introduction of new emission technology caused damage and, if so, to determine the extent of such damage. This mandate was later expanded to specifically incorporate findings from the Commission and General Court decisions regarding the Scania group and to integrate additional questions for the CTU’s assessment, namely: (vi) determine the applicable monetary revaluation and legal interest; (vii) consider the impact of tax benefits obtained by the claimants; and (viii) identify which documents were strictly necessary to avoid a “massive” and potentially irrelevant production of documents. Settlement proposal On 30 April 2025, the Court proposed a settlement: a 5% overcharge for the infringement period and 2.5% for a short lingering period. The claimants accepted the proposal, but Iveco, Scania, and MAN rejected it. Notably, in September 2025, Volvo/Renault and Mercedes-Benz (Daimler) reached separate out-of-court settlements with several claimants. The remaining case against Iveco and the non-settling third parties was then submitted to the panel for the final judgment. Judgment by the Court of Milan Binding nature of the EC Decision The Court reaffirmed that the Commission’s decisions (both the 2016 settlement decision and the 2017 Scania decision[6]) are legally binding on national courts regarding the existence of the antitrust infringement. This binding effect applies even to decisions reached through a settlement procedure, as the manufacturers voluntarily acknowledged their responsibility. Rejection of the limitation defence The defendants’ argument that the claims were time-barred was rejected. The Court ruled that the limitation period only began to run once the victims became aware of the infringement and the resulting damage, which in this case was the publication of the EC Decision. Temporal application of the Damages Directive The Court addressed the temporal applicability of Directive 2014/104/EU and Legislative Decree No. 3/2017, both adopted after the infringement had ended. It concluded that their substantive provisions do not apply retroactively. As a result, the presumption that cartels cause harm and the presumption in favour of indirect purchasers were deemed inapplicable. However, this did not preclude the finding of damage. The Court relied on general civil law principles to conclude that the Trucks cartel was highly likely to have generated an overcharge. Likewise, the burden of proving any passing-on remained with the defendants. Existence and nature of damage In light of its duration and market coverage, the Court concluded that the Trucks cartel inevitably led to an overcharge for final purchasers. It further confirmed that the infringement covered all purchases
From price-fixing to wage-fixing: are labour markets the next frontier of public and private competition law enforcement?
The recent investigation launched by the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) into an alleged cartel among producers of automated packaging machines is a timely illustration of an emerging trend in competition law enforcement. By placing labour market restrictions at the centre of its analysis, the AGCM joins a broader movement – both at EU and national level, but also beyond – that focuses on collusion among employers as a direct infringement of competition rules. Beyond public enforcement, such practices also foster closer attention to the potential use of private remedies as a means for affected workers to obtain compensation for the harm caused by collusion at the employer level.
Dairy Cartel – the next level of private antitrust enforcement: Commercial Court No. 14 of Madrid finds a 9.4% undercharge
On 16 October 2025, Commercial Court No. 14 of Madrid delivered a judgment[1] of notable relevance in the well-known Spanish Dairy Cartel case. The decision, issued by Judge Ms Carmen González Suárez in Ordinary Proceedings No. 588/2022, partially upheld a private damage claim brought against Grupo Lactalis Iberia, S.A. (Lactalis) and Industrias Lácteas de Granada, S.L.U. (Puleva), recognising their participation in a collusive agreement that affected the Spanish national market for the supply of raw milk between 2000 and 2013. The Court found that the defendants engaged in a systematic exchange of commercially sensitive information leading to price-fixing, allocation of farmers (suppliers), and control of surpluses, thereby infringing Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Article 1 of the Spanish Competition Act (Ley de Defensa de la Competencia, LDC). Unlike most cartel cases, where producers or suppliers of a certain product are engaged in anti-competitive agreements, the Dairy Cartel concerns antitrust practices conducted by the buyers, namely the companies buying raw milk, who aimed at achieving a cheaper supply by preventing farmers from negotiating prices on fair terms. This judgment represents a significant step forward in consolidating civil actions arising from such kind of anti-competitive practices. It also establishes important criteria regarding the statute of limitations, the quantification of damages, and the application of compensatory and default interest. The Court accepted the methodology of the claimant’s experts and found a 9.4% undercharge in the raw milk market At the heart of this case lies the assessment and quantification of harm caused by the buyers’ cartel, which is an exceptional scenario in competition law. Unlike a traditional sellers’ cartel, where undertakings collude to raise prices or restrict output, a buyers’ cartel involves coordination among purchasers to depress input prices. In this instance, major dairy processors exchanged sensitive commercial information and agreed on purchasing strategies to keep the prices paid to farmers artificially low. On the quantification of harm, the Court rejected a mere judicial estimation[2], and instead, conducted a detailed technical assessment of the economic expert evidence submitted. The judgment, with certain qualifications, accepted the methodology of the claimant’s experts, considering it the most robust and coherent from an econometric perspective. The Court’s analysis focused on the price undercharge, that is, the mirror image of the classic “overcharge” observed in sellers’ cartels. A buyers’ cartel pushes prices downward below what would have prevailed in a properly functioning market with a fairer balance of bargaining power between suppliers and buyers. This leads to a distorted distribution of resources and profits between the suppliers and the purchasers undermining the competitive process. In this case, the farmers suppling raw milk could have obtained a higher price absent the cartel, which would have supported more efficient competitive dynamics in Spain’s raw-milk market enhancing the viability of the farmers’ operations. However, the coordinated purchasing behaviour of the cartelists prevented that outcome. Accordingly, the undercharge represents the difference between the prices actually received by the farmers and those that would have prevailed under competitive conditions. Two complementary methods were employed: oligopolistic simulations and Difference-in-Differences (DiD) analysis. The simulations assessed competition in prices and quantities (Bertrand and Cournot models), considering the market shares of the participants according to CNMC data. The results indicated prices between 8.6% and 13.9% lower for transactions involving cartel members, and between 7.3% and 9.6% lower for non-members as a consequence of the umbrella effect. The DiD analysis, comparing price trends in Spain with unaffected markets (Portugal and Italy) during and after the infringement period, revealed prices between 9.4% and 11% lower. The consistency between both methods reinforced the robustness of the conclusions. Both approaches incorporated controls relating to the Consumer Price Index, import levels, and milk quality, as well as sensitivity analyses to test the reliability of results. However, because the claimant failed to provide sufficient evidence, the Court limited the affected volume of commerce to sales made directly to the cartel participants, excluding potential umbrella effects. As noted, this limitation was due to the lack of adequate evidence, not to a finding that such effects did not occur. In other words, the Judge did not question the general validity of the umbrella effect but concluded that the evidence presented in this case was insufficient to substantiate their occurrence. Exercising discretion, the Judge ultimately fixed the level of undercharge at 9.4%, adopting the lower bound of the range estimated by the claimant, as the mid-point proposed by the experts was deemed insufficiently justified. This finding is particularly noteworthy as it provides a judicially endorsed quantification of harm in a buyers’ cartel context, an area where economic methodologies and legal reasoning have historically been underdeveloped. By validating the use of advanced econometric tools such as simulation models and DiD analysis, the judgment sets an important precedent for future private enforcement actions in Spain. The limitation period had not yet begun to run while judicial review proceedings remain pending Regarding the statute of limitations, the Madrid Court applies the recent Supreme Court doctrine on the computation of limitation periods in antitrust damages cases. Referring to the Supreme Court judgments 889/2025 of 5 June 2025 and 2857/2025 of 17 June 2025, issued concerning the Envelopes Cartel, the Madrid Court rejected the argument that the limitation period began to run upon the mere publication of the administrative infringement decision. Rather, in line with the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, judgment of 22 June 2022, Case C-267/20, AB Volvo and DAF Trucks NV v RM) and the doctrine established by the Supreme Court in the Sugar Cartel case (STS 408/2012), the initial point for the running of time must be the date on which the administrative decision becomes final. In the present case, the CNMC (Spanish National Competition Authority) Decision has been appealed by its addressees, and some appeals are still pending, including those filed by Lactalis and Puleva, who were the defendants in the case at hand. The Court held that the limitation
EUROPEAN SUPERLEAGUE: ANALYSIS OF THE JUDGEMENT
1. Introduction At the beginning of 2021, the sports leaders of some of the most influential clubs in Europe, led by the presidents of Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, Florentino Pérez and Joan Laporta, announced the European Super League project. This international competition threatened to rival the well-known UEFA Champions League and disrupt the rigid institutional football system. A week before the UEFA Champions League 2024 final, and with Real Madrid—now champion—and its president once again in the spotlight, the debate on the Super League reemerged with the Judgement of the Commercial Court No. 17 of Madrid (Judgement No. 69/2024, dated May 24: the ‘Judgement’) after the hearing held on March 14, 2024. Before analysing the Judgement, it is worth briefly mentioning the background of the matter and the controversy it has unleashed from a legal standpoint. The proceedings began on April 18, 2021, with the filing of the action along with a request for protective measures to halt the Super League initiative before the commercial courts of Madrid by EUROPEAN SUPERLEAGUE COMPANY, S.L. (ESLC), domiciled in Madrid. Protective measures were ultimately not accepted by the Court. The action was filed on the same day that the ‘founding’ clubs issued a joint press release announcing the official project of the new competition. The project received a mixed response from across Europe, with the objection of public figures such as Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, who recently reaffirmed his opposition to the project. The Spanish Prime Minister himself, Pedro Sánchez[mfn]The article is only available in Spanish.[/mfn], also took a stand against the initiative. Interestingly, the analysis of the potential anticompetitive nature of the conduct, and the abuse of dominant position by UEFA and FIFA is not carried out by a competition authority (for instance, the European Commission) but by a commercial law judge who directly applies European Union Law without the need for a prior declaration (follow-on) from the competition authorities. Not surprisingly, UEFA and La Liga had challenged the international jurisdiction and other subsidiary jurisdictional pleas in order to avoid litigating in Madrid. The Court dismissed the jurisdiction challenge on 21 February 2022. However, the matter’s reach extended beyond the Spanish capital. The Commercial Court No. 17 of Madrid suspended the proceedings and referred a request for a preliminary ruling to the CJEU (Case C-333/21 European Superleague Company), to which it raised the compatibility of the prior authorization requirements by UEFA and FIFA as set out in their statutes and regulations with Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. The Opinion of Advocate General Anastasios Rantos, delivered on 15 December, 2022, established the compatibility of the contested articles of the Statutes with European Union law to the extent that the restrictive effects arising from such a scheme are inherent in and proportionate for achieving the legitimate objectives pursued & associated with the specific nature of the sport. The CJEU Judgement was handed down on 21 December, 2023 (ECLI:EU:2023:1011). The judges in this case discuss whether FIFA’s and UEFA’s restrictive measures are inherent and proportionate: ‘Article 102 TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that the adoption and implementation ofrules by associationswhich are responsible for football at world and European levels andwhich pursue in parallel various economic activities related to the organisation of competitions,making subject to their prior approval the setting up, on European Union territory, of a new interclub football competition by a third-party undertaking, and controlling the participation of professional football clubs and players in such a competition, on pain of sanctions, where there is no framework for those various powers providing for substantive criteria and detailed procedural rules suitable for ensuring that they are transparent, objective, non-discriminatory and proportionate, constitutes abuse of a dominant position. Article 101(1) TFEU must be interpreted as meaning that the adoption and implementation, directly or through their member national football associations, of rules […] constitutes a decision by an association of undertakings having as its object the prevention of competition.’ Thus, the baseline for the 70-page judgement of Mrs. Sofía Gil García of the Court of First Instance No. 17 (challenged by UEFA and La Liga) was to consider the conduct anticompetitive, which will also be the initial point of consideration for the Appeal Court of Madrid (Section 32) in the appeal case. 2. Discussion and legal context 2.1 Legal framework: contested regulation The Judgement defines the relevant market as the organisation and marketing of international football club competitions at the European level. Among the aforementioned declaratory actions, the one alleging the incompatibility of the defendants’ internal rules with articles 101 and 102 stands out. Specifically, it refers to articles 22, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, and 73 of the FIFA Statutes, article 6[mfn]‘1. International Matches may only be authorised by FIFA, a Confederation or a Member in accordance with these regulations.2. All International Matches must be authorised by the Members to which the participating teams belong and by the Member on whose territory the match is to be played…’.[/mfn] of the FIFA Regulations Governing International Matches, and articles 49[mfn]‘1. UEFA shall have the sole jurisdiction to organise or abolish international competitions in Europe in which Member Associations and/or their clubs participate. FIFA competitions shall not be affected by this provision. […]3. International matches, competitions or tournaments which are not organised by UEFA but are played on UEFA’s territory shall require the prior approval of FIFA and/or UEFA and/or the relevant Member Associations in accordance with the FIFA Regulations Governing International Matches and any additional implementing rules adopted by the UEFA Executive Committee’.[/mfn] and 51[mfn]‘No combinations or alliances between … clubs affiliated, directly or indirectly, to different UEFA Member Associations may be formed without the permission of UEFA’.[/mfn] of the UEFA Statutes. 2.2 Prior authorization and ‘dual nature’ of the Defendants The Judgement does not focus on the fact that FIFA and UEFA hold a monopoly in the market for the authorization and organization of international competitions, which is indisputable evidence. Rather, it highlights the absence of a regulated, controlled, and standardized authorization procedure that leads to
German Federal Court of Justice confirms factual assumption of harm in case of anticompetitive information exchanges and clarifies scope of liability in multi-product cartels
On 5 January 2023, the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) published an important judgment in relation to follow-on damage actions relating to the so-called German drugstore products cartel (Case KZR 42/20). In its ruling, Germany’s highest civil court also confirmed a factual presumption of harm in the case of anticompetitive information exchanges. This is an important clarification as the BGH had thus far only acknowledged such factual presumption in cases of price-fixing and market-sharing practices. In addition, the BGH clarified that cartel participants are jointly and severally liable for damages caused in relation to products they do not manufacture themselves if they were aware that the anticompetitive practices extended to the other products.
Collective actions and claims aggregation in the Netherlands
This article continues the series on private enforcement in the Netherlands. New collective actions regime On 1 January 2020 the new collective actions regime in the Netherlands entered into force. Under the new regime, representative bodies can bring collective damage actions for monetary compensation including for damages caused by cartels and other anticompetitive conduct. Collective actions can be brought before any district court in the Netherlands. The normal rules on local jurisdiction and venue apply. The representative entity must demonstrate, i.a., that the collective claim has a sufficiently close connection with the Dutch jurisdiction, which is the case if: (i) a majority of individuals, on whose behalf the action is brought, reside in the Netherlands, (ii) the defendant resides in the Netherlands, and additional circumstances indicate a sufficiently close connection with this jurisdiction or (iii) the event(s) giving rise to the claim took place in the Netherlands. The representative entity must fulfil several conditions and standards regarding its experience, governance, funding, and its non-profit nature. In addition, it must be sufficiently representative, i.e. encompass sufficient constituents. The entity may be established on an ad-hoc basis. In the case of competing entities, the competent court will appoint an exclusive representative and following this appointment individual class members must opt-out or find themselves bound to a decision resulting from the collective action. If such a collective action results in a settlement instead of a court decision, individuals are given another chance to opt-out. Affected individuals from outside the Netherlands may join the action on an ‘opt-in’ basis. In the first judgement under the new class action regime relating to ‘diesel emission scandal’ the Amsterdam court awarded a group of 150,000 buyers of Volkswagen cars a price reduction of between 1,500 and 3,000 Euros. Collective settlement mechanism The new collective actions regime co-exists with the previous, still valid, possibility for representative entities to enter into collective settlements with (allegedly) liable parties, and then (jointly) request the Amsterdam Court of Appeal to declare such settlement universally applicable. It should be noted that concluding such collective settlements and having these declared universally applicable may be pursued without ever initiating a collective action. Claims aggregation by assignment In addition to collective actions there is an established practice of claims aggregation by way of assignment of claims to a specialised litigation vehicle. This assignment model has often been used in the field of competition damage actions. The bundling at a material level allows for the creation of significant procedural and practical synergies. In particular, the damage quantification can be conducted using a broader and more robust data base. The right of litigation vehicles to claim the damage in their own name and the validity of the underlying assignment contracts, have been confirmed by various Dutch courts in the Air Cargo, Sodium Chlorate and Paraffin Wax cartel cases. By Till Schreiber
First Italian judgment awarding damages against the European trucks cartel (Naples “Diego Armando Maradona” Stadium: Salernitana 1 – Juventus 0)
The trucks cartel fined by the European Commission in 2016 and 2017 triggered a wave of follow-on damage actions throughout the entire European Union. In Italy, after several legal actions having been launched by logistics associations and transport companies against the six sanctioned manufacturers, the Chamber of the Naples District Court specialised in business matters rendered the first judgment awarding damages in 2021.
Revival of the ‘claims assignment class action’ in German private antitrust enforcement (and beyond)
Corporate victims of anticompetitive practices by their suppliers regularly consider their possibilities to exercise their rights in the best interest of their company. On 13 July 2021, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) held that the ‘class action collection’ (Sammelklage-Inkasso) is permissible. Correcting a contrary trend followed by lower courts, the landmark AirDeal judgment of Germany’s supreme court fundamentally confirms the legality of the opt-in ‘assignment model’, i.e. the contractual transfer of claims for damages of numerous victims of the same infringement to a specialised third party for the purpose of bundling, analysis, and joint enforcement of these claims. This approach from a procedural economy perspective has become increasingly important all over Europe in recent years, especially for private antitrust cases due to a lack of effective collective redress mechanisms. In Germany, it has also been approved by a current reform of statutory law.