Spain: The Audiencia Provincial of Madrid overturns the first instance judgments which granted damages quantified by the claimants and grants damages but based on the lower alternative quantification contained in a defendant’s expert report (Cámara de Comercio, Obras Misionales Pontificias)

The Audiencia Provincial of Madrid has overturned two judgments of two different Commercial Courts of Madrid which had dismissed the follow-on claims brought by alleged victims of the envelope cartel. The first instance courts had found that the claimants and their expert reports did not evidence sufficiently the existence of damages, and therefore dismissed their actions. The second instance judgments delivered in February 2020 partially uphold the appeals lodged by the claimants and condemns the envelope manufacturers to pay damages, but not in the amount requested by the claimants and contained in their expert reports, only in the amount which results from the alternative quantification provided by one of the defendants: a 9.43% overcharge. In March 2013 the former Spanish