Materials created for and provided to the European Commission as part of a leniency application may have to be disclosed to damages claimants in the English courts.
Applying the European Court of Justice’s Pfleiderer judgment, the English High Court in National Grid v ABB yesterday ordered disclosure to the claimant of limited parts of the confidential (non‐public) version of the Commission’s switchgear cartel decision.
It also ordered that parts of responses to information requests be disclosed. Both contain leniency material. Leniency applicants will therefore have to consider carefully the contents of any written material provided to the Commission in future, as this material may later have to be provided to civil claimants in follow‐on claims.
