Indirect purchasers and passing-on

Chapter 10 focuses on the relationship between indirect purchasers and the concept of passing-on. The actual content of the right to be compensated for harm suffered as a result of an infringement of the competition rules is affected by the expansive nature of such harm, which can be passed on by the directly injured party to other market participants. The passing-on of harm may be alleged by both the plaintiff indirect purchaser (as "sword") and the defendant infringer (as "shield"). The substantive and procedural legal consequences of the pass-on of the harm related to standing, to the legal link between the infringement and the passing-on and to the quantification of the damages’ award, are only partially harmonized by the Damages Directive. They are therefore largely governed by national rules subject to the principles of equivalence and effectiveness. As a consequence of the latter in particular, understood in a broad sense, increasing harmonization in this area is also occurring incrementally through the case law of the Court of Justice as discussed in this Chapter.