ROMANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Manuela Guia, Otilia Vîlcu, Violeta Geru and Cristina Badea, GNP Guia Naghi & Partners
3.2 Typical Length of Private Antitrust Litigation Private antitrust litigation in Romania is lengthy, reflect - ing both the complexity of the underlying economic issues and the procedural hurdles created by succes - sive changes to the transposing legislation. Based on the cases resolved or pending to date, a claim can be expected to take between three and eight years to reach a final resolution across the first instance, appeal and, where applicable, further appeal on points of law, with cases involving disclosure requests direct - ed at the Competition Council or the appointment of experts tending toward the upper end of that range. Where a related challenge to the underlying infringe - ment decision is pending, courts frequently exercise their discretion to stay the damages proceedings, which alone can add a further two to five years before the claim resumes. In Romania specifically, several of the leading Trucks Cartel cases illustrate how retrial can extend pro - ceedings well beyond a typical first-instance time - line: cases were sent back for retrial by the Bucharest Court of Appeal and the High Court of Cassation and Justice, respectively, several years after the original claims were filed, meaning that neither case has yet produced a final ruling on the merits notwithstand - ing having been filed in 2020 and 2021 respectively. However, older damages claims based on abuse of dominance infringements were resolved more quickly by final ruling. Romania has no procedural framework specifically providing for class or collective actions in the field of competition damages. Romania has transposed the Representative Actions Directive (EU) 2020/1828 through Law No 414/2023, but that framework is con - fined to infringements listed in its Annex, which does not include competition law; as a result, collective redress under Law No 414/2023 is not directly avail - able for private antitrust damages claims. Article 66 of Competition Law 21/1996 allows con - sumer associations to bring damages claims on behalf 4. Class and Collective Actions 4.1 Statutory Basis
of consumers. However, no public data exists on such claims and no specific procedural framework imple - ments this provision. Similarly, the right of business associations to bring damages claims for their mem - bers is not equivalent to a class or collective action. In practice, however, the absence of a bespoke class action mechanism in other areas of law has not pre - vented large groups of claimants from pursuing dam - ages together, since ordinary civil procedure rules on co-participation allow multiple plaintiffs to bring a joint claim through common representatives. Although not related to private antitrust enforcement, the scale that ordinary co-participation can achieve is illustrated by earlier consumer banking litigation: publicly available court records show clusters of approximately 520 and 580 plaintiffs joining single claims against one bank between 2010 and 2012 and clusters of approximate - ly 360 plaintiffs each joining separate claims against another bank over the same period, all concerning abusive clauses (unfair interest-rate terms) in con - sumer loan agreements and not competition-related cases. A pending legislative proposal would expressly facili - tate such co-participation by natural persons in com - petition damages claims and would separately grant the Ministry of Finance standing to claim damages suffered by public authorities, although it would not introduce a true class action mechanism. 4.2 Opting In or Out Romania does not operate a dedicated class action regime for private antitrust enforcement; thus it has no opt-in or opt-out system such as those in some other jurisdictions. Where consumers pursue related claims for unfair commercial practices or unfair contract terms that fall within the scope of Law No 414/2023, an opt-in mechanism applies to any request for reme - dial measures, requiring each consumer to provide individual, dated written authorisation before the claim is filed. Ordinary co-participation by multiple claim - ants in a single competition damages action does not require a comparable formal opt-in, but each repre - sented claimant’s power of attorney must be specific to the claim and executed before the proceedings begin.
146 A NTITRUST LI T IGATI O N 2026
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