Regulatory Agencies and Private Damages in the EU: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice

Regulatory agencies have traditionally been concerned with deterring unlawful conduct in the public interest. This article explores the emerging role of agencies in securing compensation for individuals in mass damage situations resulting from violations of EU private law. It identifies three main models of the relationship between administrative enforcement and private law remedies, notably damages, within the agencies’ operation: (1) separation, (2) complementarity, and (3) integration. These models reflect elements of the current legislative and agency practices in a variety of jurisdictions across different areas of EU private law and provide an analytical framework for assessing such practices in terms of their potential to reconcile the pursuit of the public interest with a concern to ensure justice between private parties. The analysis points to the need to systematically rethink the prevailing regulatory theory concerning the tasks of regulatory agencies along the lines of a holistic approach to deterrence and compensation.