Assessment Of Antitrust Damages In Indirect Purchasers In The United States

As a powerful complement of antitrust enforcement,Antitrust private executionhas gained the recognition of the vast majority of the country，but one of thecontroversial topic is that whether indirect purchaser can bring an antitrust damageaction.Opponents raised the most powerful reason that it is difficult to evaluatedamages in indirect purchaser claims. On the positive side,more than half of the statesby state legislature have approved of lawsuit qualification of indirect purchaser.Thereal problem is how to estimate the indirect purchaser damage from antitrustviolation.In terms of indirect purchaser antitrust private litigations，The United States isthe most developed country. Regarding the issue of indirect purchasers’monopolydamages,US formed a unique pathway:First,plaintiff needs to put forward the proof ofassessing the total amount of damage monopoly to the court,the court will decidewhether to adopt;second,estimate on the passing-on damages.For the total amount omonopoly damages,the US court usually requires the plaintiff to provide economicevidence to prove the amount of damages.Then,for the passing-on damages,from thepractical level, the judge,parties and lawyers are still followed the general monopolydamage estimation methods, namely the method of economic analysis. Usingeconomic principles and methods to assess the damage within the legal frameworkhas become an common way in the judicial practice in the United States. But thisapproach costs a lot of judicial resources,and still can’t be gained an accurate result,inassessing the indirect purchasers suffered passing-on damages it still not obtainsconsistent approval.Then,some American scholars in calculating indirect purchasersantitrust damages problems began to propose a institution of hypothetical way directlythrough the legal fiction that the provisions of the extent of damage and the specificallocation of indirect purchasers, thus ensuring the desired indirect purchasers to gainantitrust damages, but also to avoid many difficulties encountered in the process ofestimating damages. This method can guarantee the system assumed that indirectpurchasers obtain legal relief, while promoting antitrust deterrent function can beachieved.