On 15 December 2011, the EU General Court ruled that the European Commission should have disclosed the index from a cartel investigation to Cartel Damages Claims (CDC), a company bringing a collective damages action against the cartel defendants.

The decision, which is likely to be lauded by damages claimants, represents a small clarification in the ongoing issue surrounding the right of claimants to have access to documents submitted to EU antitrust authorities in the context of cartel proceedings. The judgment could be interpreted as a step towards making it easier for damages claimants to acquire “hot documents” to bolster their damages claim. A more realistic interpretation would take into account that the judgment only concerns the index of the case file and not a confidential document or a document prepared by the leniency applicants. The decision does, however, highlight the uncertainty surrounding the rights of claimants’ to access antitrust regulators’ files, following the European Court of Justice’s ruling in Pfleiderer earlier this year.