Granville Technology Group Limited and others v LG Display Co Limited and others

The Appellants brought a follow-on claim for damages arising from the LCD cartel. At trial, they recovered a small fraction of the sums they sought. The Appellants appealed against the trial judgment on three main grounds, contending that the trial judge had erred (1) by relying in his draft judgment on an erroneous principle of “erring on the side of under-compensation”, which was not cured by his subsequent reconsideration of the draft judgment; (2) in his approach to assessing the overcharge; and (3) by failing to apply the correct test in law for establishing downstream pass-on, which requires proof of a “direct and proximate causal link”.

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal to a limited extent, in light of the first ground of appeal, and made modest adjustments to the trial judge’s findings to eliminate the possibility of under-recovery. However, it rejected the Appellants’ substantive complaints challenging the judge’s analysis of overcharge and downstream pass-on, including reaching the view that the judge was entitled to conclude that a direct and proximate causal link had been proved.

The judgment is likely to be of interest to competition practitioners for its analysis of the requirement of a direct and proximate causal link in relation to downstream pass-on and its observations on the approach to the assessment of damages more generally.

Hanif Mussa KC acted for the Respondents, instructed by Paul Stuart and Kathryn Collar at Cleary Gottleib Steen & Hamilton LLP.

The judgment may be found here.