This article tackles private antitrust enforcement, focusing on one of its concrete expressions: tort liability, in particular between rivals. Using elements of foreign and Chilean law, this article shows that tort liability makes a limited contribution to the deterrence and punishment of anticompetitive conduct. First, antitrust infringements impair mainly consumers and markets as a whole, whilst tort liability is esentially an instrument of compensation for the harm that those acts inflict on individual and identifiable victims, like competitors. Secondly, the complex proof of harm and causation significantly restricts the chance of obtaining redress, thus diminishing the effectiveness of tort liability as a deterrent to anticompetitive behaviour.