ROMANIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Manuela Guia, Otilia Vîlcu, Violeta Geru and Cristina Badea, GNP Guia Naghi & Partners
accounting and valuation expertise. The Romanian approach of relying on court-appointed multidisci - plinary panels, supplemented by party-appointed experts, sits within a broader, though not universal, European practice of judicial reliance on independent expertise to resolve complex quantification disputes. 8. Damages 8.1 Damages: Assessment, Passing On and Interest Generally, Romanian law adheres strictly to a com - pensatory approach to damages and no Romanian court has held that private antitrust damages should have a punitive or exemplary effect. The same principles cover antitrust damages actions. As such, Romanian courts apply the principle of full compensation, meaning that a successful claimant is entitled to recover its actual loss, typically the over - charge paid as a result of the infringement, any lost profits it can establish and legal interest. Statutory legal interest may be either remunerative or punitive. Government Ordinance 13/2011 governs statutory interest and sets the legal interest rate. Case law diverges on the type of interest to be award - ed in such cases. Nevertheless, ECJ case law gener - ally holds that interest runs from the date the harm occurred until actual payment. However, Romanian case law on tort liability is divergent and holds that interest runs only after a final court ruling awards dam - ages. Quantification typically relies on expert evidence applying one or more recognised methods, such as comparing prices before and after the infringe - ment, comparing affected and unaffected markets, cost-based or financial analysis or regression analy - sis. While the 20% overcharge presumption favours claimants, the defendant may rebut it with evidence. As such, expert opinions aim to prove the actual extent of damages. In one of the Romanian cases in which damages were quantified and awarded, the court ordered payment
of an overcharge of approximately EUR3.13 million based on a comparison of gross and net price lists across a large sample of transactions, together with compensation for related pollution-standard costs, lost profits and penalties, although the resulting per - centage of overcharge could not be definitively estab - lished. The pass-on defence is available in Romania, as described in more detail at 2.5 Pass-On Defence and operates only to reduce the damages recover - able rather than to defeat liability altogether. Consistent with the joint and several liability principle under the Damages Directive framework as trans - posed by GEO 170/2020, any infringer may in prin - ciple be held liable for the whole of the harm caused by the infringement. As such, a claimant may pursue full compensation from a single defendant even where several undertakings participated in the same infringe - ment. Furthermore, claimants may argue for the exist - ence of umbrella effects against undertakings that did not themselves infringe but whose own prices were influenced by the infringement of others. In practice, Romanian claimants in cartel cases have sought joint and several liability from all defendants without the courts being required to apportion respon - sibility between co-infringers. 9. Liability and Contribution 9.1 Joint and Several Liability Consistent with the EU framework, an immunity recipi - ent granted full immunity from fines by the Competi - tion Council benefits from a corresponding limitation of its civil liability. Such an infringer is, as a rule, jointly and severally liable only towards its own direct or indi - rect purchasers or providers and is liable towards oth - er injured parties only where those parties are unable to obtain full compensation from the other participants
in the infringement. 9.2 Contribution
Romanian law in principle allows an infringer that has paid more than its share of joint and several liability to bring a contribution claim against its co-infringers.
150 A NTITRUST LI T IGATI O N 2026
CHAMBERS.COM
Powered by FlippingBook