HUK Coburg v. Car Glass Manufacturers (Asahi, Saint-Gobain Sekurit, Pilkington)

Following an Article 101 infringement decision by the European Commission relating to car glass manufacturers, insurance company HUK Coburg claimed compensation for alleged damages before the Dusseldorf Regional Court, on the ground that HUK allegedly incurred excessive costs upon reimbursing for car glass that was replaced, because the prices of the replacement glass was inflated by the practices under investigation. Compass Lexecon provided economic analyses that rebutted Plaintiff’s claim that economic theory demonstrated that the practices necessarily caused damage to car glass (direct) purchasers, and that any overcharge on prices charged by car glass manufacturers would be passed on in replacement products reimbursed by insurers. Compass Lexecon economists addressed the shortcomings of the price comparisons put forward by Plaintiff in support of its claim. In particular, we addressed the competitive process of awarding car glass procurement contracts, what implications could be drawn from auction theory, and the mechanism by which any hypothetical price increase experienced by direct purchasers could or could not be passed on to indirect purchasers of replacement products. The Dusseldorf Regional Court (Landgericht Düsseldorf) rejected HUK Coburg’s claim because it had not demonstrated that it suffered damage. The CL team included David Sevy, Frédéric Palomino and Jérémiah Juts. We provided support to a Linklaters team advising Saint Gobain that included Rupert Bellinghausen, Bernd Meyring, Julia Grothaus and Anke Krause.