THE CJEU STATES THAT THE PREVIOUS CZECH STATUTE OF LIMITATION IS CONTRARY TO EU LAW

#116The CJEU states that the previous Czech statute of limitation is contrary to EU law

The Czech company Heureka, which operates a portal for comparing sales prices, claims that Google's search engine systematically favored its own price comparator. As a result, Heureka's portal had less traffic. Heureka claimed that Google caused her damage.

The competent Czech court considered whether the previous limitation period under Czech law, which still applies to this lawsuit, is compatible with Union law. Namely, the three-year limitation period for each partial damage begins to run from the moment when the injured party learns:

1. about the fact that such damage occurred to her; a
2. about the identity of the violator.

On the contrary, national legislation does not require knowledge that the conduct in question constitutes an infringement, nor that the infringement has ended, in order for the limitation period to start to run. Nor does it stipulate that the said period must rest or be interrupted during the investigation conducted by the Commission for up to one year from the date on which the Commission's decision establishing the infringement becomes final. The Court of Justice ruled in its judgment that Union law prevents the Czech legislation applicable until the late transposition of Directive 2014/104.

In relation to the question in question, the CJEU stated that even before the expiry of the deadline for the transposition of this Directive 2014/104, Union law required that, in order to start the limitation period:

1. there was an end to the violation of the law of economic competition; and
2. for the injured person to learn about the information necessary to file a claim for damages, in particular, that the action in question constitutes such a violation.

These two conditions are necessary for the injured person to be able to effectively exercise his right to claim full compensation for the damage he suffered as a result of the infringement of competition law.

In this context, the Court of Justice stated that Union law also requires that the limitation period may be suspended or interrupted during an investigation conducted by the Commission, in order to prevent the limitation period from running before the end of that investigation. Given that it is generally difficult for an injured party to prove a violation of competition law without a decision by the Commission or a national authority, he must be able to wait for the outcome of such an investigation in order to possibly refer to such a decision in a subsequent claim for damages.

In addition, Directive 2014/104 now provides that the limitation period must run for at least one year from the date on which the Commission's decision finding the infringement in question became final.

The Court of Justice thus concluded that the previous Czech statute of limitation is incompatible with Union law. It practically makes it impossible or excessively difficult to exercise the right to claim compensation for damage suffered as a result of a violation of competition law.