Cramer, Eric L.; Simons, Daniel C. --- "Parties Entitled to Pursue a Claim" [2010] ELECD 746; in Foer, A. Albert; Cuneo, W. Jonathan (eds), "The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law

Editor(s): Foer, A. Albert; Cuneo, W. Jonathan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448773

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Parties Entitled to Pursue a Claim

Author(s): Cramer, Eric L.; Simons, Daniel C.

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

6 Parties entitled to pursue a claim
Eric L. Cramer and Daniel C. Simons1


Introduction
Antitrust violations often reverberate widely throughout a market and the economy
more generally, impacting a myriad of market participants in a broad variety of ways.
Hence, for a single violation, there may be multiple victims, each with potentially
cognizable antitrust claims.
Under the literal and broad terms of the US antitrust laws, all persons or entities suf-
fering harm to their `business or property'2 due to anticompetitive conduct theoretically
have a claim to recover three times their damages resulting from that conduct.
However, the courts have placed prudential limits on both the types of entities that
can bring suit for violations of the Sherman Act and the circumstances under which
such suits can be brought. These limitations come in the form of a multi-pronged test
that examines the claimant, the linkage between the alleged harm and the challenged
conduct, the type of claim asserted, and, in certain circumstances, the complexity of the
proof needed to prove the claim. Because of this test, determining whether a plaintiff has
standing to bring an antitrust claim can sometimes present complex and difficult issues,3
and thus has generated a myriad of decisions over the years.
Chief among the restrictions on who can bring a claim is the need for the private anti-
trust plaintiff to demonstrate `antitrust injury.' For that, the law first looks to see if a
private plaintiff has sustained the type of injury ...