The CJEU outlines the forum of the 'anchor defendant' in actions for 'antitrust' damages directed against a plurality of defendants
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has specified the scope of Article 8.1 of the Brussels I Bis Regulation in actions for damages for infringements of competition law with multiple defendants. The judgment clarifies that the anchor defendant forum can be applied even if that defendant has not been the addressee of the sanctioning decision and confirms that the mere fact that the alleged harm occurred outside the European Economic Area (EEA) is not, in itself, sufficient to treat the claim as manifestly unfounded at the jurisdictional stage.
On 16 April 2026, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered a judgment in Joined Cases C-672/23 and C-673/23, ruling on two requests for a preliminary ruling from the Gerechtshof Amsterdam (Court of Appeal, Amsterdam) concerning the interpretation of Article 8(1) of Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 (Brussels I Bis), relating to the jurisdiction of multiple defendants, in the context of two actions for damages arising from infringements of Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Article 53 of the EEA Agreement.
This is a relevant judgment for antitrust litigation in Europe: it develops the doctrinal line established in the Athenian Brewery judgment (C-393/23, February 13, 2025); it specifies what circumstances may support the application of the jurisdiction of the anchor defendant when that entity is not one of the addressees of the sanctioning decision; and clarifies that, for the purposes of analysing international jurisdiction, the mere fact that the alleged damage occurred outside the EEA is not sufficient to consider the action manifestly unfounded.
We analyse it in detail in this post.
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