Grounds for Private Enforcement of Albanian Competition Law

Abstract

Infringements of competition law can cause serious harm to both consumers and undertakings. Aside from the development of public enforcement of competition law, much focus has been placed in recent years in the European Union on private competition law enforcement. Lawsuits raised by undertakings that sustained damages from anti-competitive practice concerning the compensation of such damages have historically not been widespread in Europe. No such cases have been recorded in Albania at all yet, despite the fact that its competition protection legislation has provided this possibility since 1995. The main causes of the lack of private competition law enforcement in Albania include the absence of judicial practice and doctrinal approaches in this area. Relevant here is also the inability of Albanian businesses and consumers to react to competition protection cases as they still lack competition law knowledge and as a result of the absence of an appropriate legal framework for class actions. The scope of this article is to analyze the current situation of private competition law enforcement in Albania. The paper emphasizes the current legal framework including existing obstacles to private competition law enforcement and improvements that should be introduced in the context of its competition law, the law of civil procedures and the law of obligations.