Delchev & Partners

Bulgaria – Private enforcement (DLC)(Delchev & Partners)((2026)

Private enforcement in Bulgaria:

• Private enforcement in Bulgaria has been possible ever since Bulgaria acceded to the European Union back in 2007. However, it has not been quite popular through the years and it is only recently that there has been any real development in that area.

• The most important developments concern:

• the relation between private and public enforcement; and

• the nullity under Article 101(2) of TFEU and its corresponding national provision of Article 15(2) of the Bulgarian Protection of Competition Act (PCA);

• Older case prior to the Private Damages Directive maintained that the finding of an infringement by the Bulgarian Commission on Protection of Competition (CPC) and administrative courts in public enforcement was a condition for the admissibility of a civil claim for damages. Inadmissibility means that it is legally impermissible to have private enforcement proceedings prior to the establishment of an infringement in public enforcement proceedings.

Recent case law of the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) seems to have turned the page, especially in light of the Private Damages Directive, stating that the fact that the binding effect of the CPC’s final decision is attributed only to those decisions which establish an infringement of the PCA means that the provision is relevant only to the proof of the facts specified therein and does not constitute a condition for the admissibility of the private enforcement proceedings. SCC also noted that the legislator has taken into account that it is often difficult for the claimant to prove the fact of the infringement, and that this usually requires a complex factual and economic analysis. Therefore, it facilitates this by attaching irrefutable evidentiary value to the positive decision of CPC, in view of its wide range of powers and instruments for establishing the infringement and the infringer, while at the same time relieving the court and the parties to the proceedings of the burden of proving these facts and prohibiting their review.