The rise of public regulation of private law relationships has resulted in a thorny legal landscape across regulated markets shaped by the complex interplay between multiple actors, including legislators, regulatory agencies, and courts, and fraught with tensions between public and private interests. This chapter sets out the book’s purpose, namely, to offer a new theoretical perspective on the relationship between market regulation and private law that is built on the claim that these two forms of legal discourse are two sides of the same coin that can be reconciled with each other. The chapter explains the background to this study and the research design, focusing on the interaction between EU private law as a subset of market regulation and traditional national private law. It begins with a brief account of the growing role of market regulation in the private law domain and then proceeds to identify the core questions that the collision between market regulation and private law gives rise to, which underlie the book. The chapter further explains the novelty of this work in relation to existing literature on private law and regulation, as well as its approach to the subject.

It has been widely recognised in the legal as well as law and economics literature that both regulatory and private enforcement are needed to ensure the effectiveness of market regulation in general and EU private law in particular. This chapter unpacks the interplay between these two enforcement mechanisms, focusing on three major issues that arise in practice: the disclosure of evidence gathered by regulatory agencies, the limitation periods for private enforcement actions, and the combined application of administrative sanctions and private law remedies. The chapter constructs three models of the relationship between public and private enforcement – separation, substitution, and complementarity – and explains their main characteristics, manifestations, and implications. It also assesses the potential of each model to strike the right balance between deterrence in the name of the public interest and compensation in the name of interpersonal justice, as well as between uniformity and diversity in regulatory and private enforcement, and draws out some of the practical implications of this analysis for EU private lawmaking and enforcement.

This concluding chapter brings the separate lines of inquiry developed throughout this book together to present a holistic analytical framework for analysing the relationship between market regulation and private law within the EU multilevel system of governance and beyond. This novel framework sets out three main models of this relationship – separation, substitution, and complementarity – and elucidates their key strengths and weaknesses. Drawing on these findings, the chapter shows how regulatory discourse and traditional private law discourse can mutually influence each other in a way that enables reconciliation between them, and provides a road map to such reconciliation in standard-setting and enforcement. It suggests that public regulation of private law relationships and traditional private law should be seen as two sides of the same coin that can be aligned with each other. To reconcile those two forms of legal discourse is to enable them to work in tandem, while acknowledging their distinctive characteristics and, where necessary, making trade-offs between the competing values that underpin them. While private law discourse should be receptive to the public interest–driven logic of market regulation, regulatory discourse should be receptive to the relational logic of traditional private law.

The ability of private law to shape health care and public health is evident in the effects that tort law had on improving patient safety in anesthesiology and curtailing the marketing of tobacco products. One would think of health care costs as a fertile area for litigation, for many reasons: widespread provider of opportunism that invites legal challenges under a number of theories; the considerable resources that payers and health policy philanthropies have available to invest in litigation strategies; and the high stakes involved in a large industry that is unusually aggressive in the chase for consumer and health insurance dollars. One can find numerous examples of parties pursuing legal action to lower costs, often successfully. But what is striking about these cases is how isolated they are – largely individual, uncoordinated efforts – and how they have failed to meaningfully curtail provider excesses. Most tellingly, the problem of balance billing by out-of-network physicians never gave rise to significant litigation and was resolved by Congressional action that, ironically, incorporated existing common law doctrines.

This paper reviews instances of provider opportunism to obtain higher prices, including contriving to bill “charges” rather than accepting market prices for services; “upcoding” for services by overstating the amount of work involved; and consolidation to achieve market concentration and power vis-a-vis payers. It then discusses available legal theories to remedy such conduct and inventories efforts to invoke them. Finally, it applies political science theories to analyze potential explanations for the dearth of litigation in this area.

Chapter 10 provides an overview of the role and functions of private enforcement within regulatory regimes and the availability of redress. It draws attention to different ‘models of legal responsibility’ upon which regulatory regimes rely in allocating and distributing legal rights and duties between those who are subject to regulation and those whom regulation is intended to protect (‘regulatory beneficiaries’). This chapter is the most legally focused chapter in the volume, selectively highlighting several features of the institutional and enforcement context in which regulation occurs. Examples are private litigation, collective redress mechanisms, the role of courts as authoritative and final interpreters of the law and ‘alternative’ avenues for redress.

The aims of EU competition law are contested. The mainstream view that competition law prohibits conduct that harms consumer welfare leads to discussion about the proper economic approach to apply. EU competition law has often been applied in ways that address other public policy considerations, presently focusing on promoting digital markets and a green agenda. The procedures to apply competition law must safeguard the fundamental rights of undertakings and the Court of Justice has helped shape the degree of protection as well as the right to a robust judicial review of Commission decisions. Since 2004, national competition authorities have been tasked with applying EU competition law. Cooperation among national authorities and the Commission is facilitated by the European Competition Network and the ECN+ Directive has conferred on each national competition authorities the same enforcement powers that the Commission enjoys. Each national authority focuses on cases that affect its jurisdiction, the Commission retaining responsibility for cross-border infringements. Private enforcement has been facilitated by the EU legislature and a system of collective redress by which consumers secure compensation is emerging slowly in some jurisdictions.

Separation of powers or, more exactly, the rule of law, due process or, in Europe, the right to a fair trial influence the institutional setting of antitrust or regulatory authorities and law enforcement. An increased role given to specific regulation or antitrust in order to tackle some fundamental issues posed by the concentration of economic-political power does not go without independent and impartial decision-making from an institutional and procedural, a personal or a financial and lobbying perspective.

This chapter on India suggests that the Indian Competition Act of 2002 already had the possibility to offer lenient treatment to a firm that reports the existence of a cartel. However, the details for offering lenient treatment were only elaborated for the first time in 2009, in the Lesser Penalty Regulation. A revision followed in 2017. This resulted in a mere thirteen decisions of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) supported by the leniency programme. This low number may be explained by the discretion the CCI has to judge leniency applications and the uncertainty leniency applicants face in relation to damages claims. The chapter recommends addressing these issues, but also increasing the incentives to apply for leniency by introducing individualised sanctions to directors or immunising successful leniency applicants from debarment from procurement projects. Another recommendation is to avoid creating other pitfalls when the Competition Act is being amended.

The chapter assesses the Taiwanese leniency programme. Taiwan incorporated a leniency programme into the Taiwan Fair Trade Act in 2011. Since it became operational in 2012, the leniency programme has been used fifteen times. Out of these fifteen leniency applications, three applications have led to a decision. Noticing that financial rewards are not really assisting the leniency applications, the chapter investigates whether the low number of decisions could be attributed to the design of the leniency programme. This is done based upon the checklist of effective leniency programmes created by the International Competition Network. The main conclusion drawn is that the leniency programme may only be moderately effective. The chapter further argues that lawyers have identified the following elements as exacerbating the bad conceptualisation of the leniency programme: uncertainty about the calculation of the fines, access to the leniency dossier by third parties, and uncertainty on how the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission deals with cartel cases in general. Another concern that the chapter ascertains is the lack of awareness in Taiwan about the disputable character of cartels.

Competition law increasingly needs to deal with contribution claims. Claims for antitrust damages are selectively brought forward against companies with vast financial assets or established in claimant-friendly jurisdictions. There is thus an emerging need for allocating liability internally among antitrust infringers. However, the ability to claim contribution in competition law cannot be taken for granted. In Texas Industries, the US Supreme Court was clear that such claims are not currently available in US antitrust law. The aim of the book is to explain how the issue of contribution is resolved in EU competition law.

A promising solution is to handle the problem of contribution in a contractual way. Antitrust infringers could conclude an agreement which would determine the amount of their relative liabilities regarding antitrust infringement. The freedom to determine relative shares of liability may yet be viewed reluctantly from a public policy perspective. It is claimed that liability sharing agreements constitute anticompetitive arrangements, they stabilize cartels, weaken the enforcement of competition law and have a negative impact on settlements. This Chapter reveals that these statements are mostly incorrect, being applicable to US antitrust law rather than EU one. The Chapter makes a positive case for liability sharing agreements. It demonstrates that liability sharing agreements are allowed by EU law and can be concluded within certain limitations dictated by compliance with the Commission’s fining decisions and public policy rules.

This chapter sheds light on the international organisations that have been active in proliferating leniency programmes. This contribution includes the efforts of the OECD, ICN, UNCTAD and ASEAN. For each of these organisations, the chapter argues that they have a tendency to look for the common elements among existing leniency programmes and present them as an international guideline or best practice. When the existing leniency programmes diverge, the international guideline or best practice is to offer options. By not further clarifying these options, the chapter holds, the international organisations do no more than summarise local practices and pull them outside of their context. Due to this practice, convergence is unlikely to happen because, when the international guidelines or best practices are consulted, there will be an automatic reflex to also consult existing local practices and the existing literature regarding those practices.

This chapter claims that the operation and success of a leniency programme are premised on a carrot-and-stick approach that is expected to lead to a race for confession, as the highest and sometimes only reward – depending on the design of the leniency programme – is for the first cartel member to defect and cooperate with the authorities. The main pre-requisites to instigate this race for confession are the threat of severe sanctions if a cartel is caught, a high risk of detection of a cartel, and a high degree of transparency and predictability in relation to leniency. The chapter then argues that the early leniency programmes of the United States and the European Union have been revised with these pre-requisites in mind. To illustrate the importance of the theory, this chapter than evaluates the most recent version of the respective leniency programmes. The chapter finishes with some thoughts on the similarities and differences between the two leniency programmes.

Directive 2014/104/EU introduced special rules on joint and several for those engaged in consensual dispute resolution, immunity recipients and small and medium enterprises. The aim of this Chapter is to outline the liability regime for these entities. The assessment starts with the analysis of policy arguments and the search for the logic behind the special rules on joint and several liability. It is asked whether the special treatment of privileged groups is justified and whether the rules provided by Directive 2014/104/EU meet the envisioned aims. Subsequently, the assessment takes a pragmatic angle and it is asked how the special regimes of joint and several liability operate in practice and how they can be improved. The analysis shows that Directive 2014/104/EU insufficiently shields immunity recipients from an extensive private law liability and the rules on joint and several liability call the effectiveness of leniency programmes into question. The Directive’s rules on consensual dispute resolution are also flawed. Given that there is no clear legal benchmark for dividing antitrust liability, the settling parties are virtually unable to determine which settlement offer to make and they can end up overcompensating or being undercompensated.

The intersection between contribution claims and EU competition law is controversial. Theoretically, the European Commission’s decision to hold several entities liable for an antitrust infringement can be circumvented if one entity escapes liability by successfully claiming contribution. The key questions are whether contribution claims are allowed in EU competition law and what requirements competition law sets for contribution litigation. The analysis shows that contribution claims do not endanger the effectiveness of competition law. The aims of competition law enforcement are met as soon as antitrust infringers pay the fine to the Commission or compensation to the victims of antitrust infringements. The CJEU in Siemens Österreich therefore allowed for contribution in competition law to be applied. While contribution claims generally do not endanger competition enforcement, competition law influences contribution litigation. The preliminary question in every dispute on contribution is an antitrust infringement, which has already been decided. Judges should thus not go against the decisions of the European Commission and are advised to respect the findings of national courts. In particular, one must respect the catalogue of entities held jointly and severally liable by the Commission, the 10% turnover cap and the information included in the Commission’s decision.

Chapter 6 turns to the subject of 'private enforcement', which in East Asia is uneven and inadequate. It discusses this through the lens of ‘litigation culture’, or rather the culture of non-litigiousness. Claims of non-litigiousness in East Asia, and above all in Japan, have been fiercely contested by scholars. Yet the subject is nuanced; the impact of non-adversarialism has not simply been ‘debunked’. In the context of this debate, the chapter examines factors that have limited the development of consumer antitrust claims. Consistent with the value of social harmony and the ancient authoritarianism that prioritizes social stability, methods of mediation and conciliation have been favoured over court conflict. Under the influence of this tradition, private parties have often been encouraged to settle their differences. Deviating from this tradition, the chapter highlights Korea, where recent legislative developments are producing, at least on paper, stronger litigation incentives. Overall, the view is expressed that, where cultural factors contribute to non-adversarialism, thereby leading to a deficit in the vindication of private claims, it appears that cultural messaging and a shift in norms may assist in unlocking the potential of legal and procedural reforms that reduce institutional barriers and activate economic incentives.

Breaches of competition law may incur severe sanctions in Austria. Besides heavy administrative fines and nullity of contracts contravening competition law, antitrust infringers must expect private damage action claims from customers or suppliers harmed by antitrust violation. However, only very few final decisions have been rendered in Austria’s private antitrust litigation so far. Under Austrian criminal law, cartel collusion in tendering procedures may qualify as fraud or bid-rigging. Criminal convictions may in turn lead to the withdrawal of trade licences and pose a risk for the company of being 'blacklisted' – at least temporarily – in public procurement procedures. Under exceptional circumstances, dissolution of the company may be ordered if a director has committed an offence in the course of the company’s business activities; the latter possibility only applies to limited liability companies. Under Austrian company law, a director is liable to reimburse all damages caused by not applying the standard care diligence of a prudent business manager, including the compensation of damages incurred through infringements of competition law. This liability exists towards both the company and business partners.