The milk cartel reaches the Supreme Court: limitation runs from the final competition authority decision and minimum damage can be judicially estimated
The Civil Chamber upholds the conviction of three dairy firms and sets the start of limitation at the final CNMC decision.
Around one hundred cattle farmers have obtained Supreme Court confirmation of the conviction of three major dairy processors over the milk cartel, in a judgment that settles several open questions of competition damages law. STS 1635/2026, of 21 October (ROJ: STS 4299/2026, ECLI: ES:TS:2026:4299), with Judge Pedro José Vela Torres as rapporteur, decides cassation appeal 3635/2026 against judgment 1437/2025, of 15 December, of Section 15 of the Barcelona Provincial Court.
The dispute: farmers against the processors
The claimants, raw cow's milk producers, sued Corporación Alimentaria Peñasanta (CAPSA), Industrias Lácteas de Granada (formerly Puleva) and Danone in 2022 for the damage caused by the conduct sanctioned by the CNMC in its decision of 11 July 2019: the exchange of strategic information on prices, farmers and surpluses. That decision replaced an earlier one from 2015, annulled for procedural defects.
The Barcelona Commercial Court No. 11 found the action time-barred by reference to the 2015 decision. The Provincial Court rejected limitation, partially upheld the claim and set a 2 percent underpayment by judicial estimation. All parties appealed; Industrias Lácteas de Granada's appeal was dismissed on procedural grounds and the Supreme Court has now dismissed the rest, with costs on each appellant.
Limitation: the dies a quo is the final decision
The Chamber reiterates that the limitation period cannot start before the injured party knows, or could reasonably know, the infringement, the damage, the causal link and the identity of the infringer. When the competition authority's decision has been challenged and the appeal may alter its content, the dies a quo is that of its finality.
The judgment relies on the CJEU judgment of 4 September 2025, Nissan Iberia (C-21/24), which also requires official and accessible publication of the judgment conferring finality. It clarifies that the Heureka doctrine (C-605/21), based on publication of a summary in the Official Journal, does not extend to CNMC decisions published only on its website. Moreover, the 2019 decision was not a mere restatement of the 2015 one, as it reduced the infringement periods attributed to the three companies.
According to the commentary consulted, the ruling consolidates for the milk cartel the case law on the starting point of limitation tied to finality, already applied in the trucks and envelopes cartels, now in light of Nissan Iberia.
Umbrella effect: possible, but not presumed
In line with the CJEU's Kone judgment (C-557/12), umbrella damages are legally possible, but the Supreme Court stresses that they are not presumed: the claimant must prove the causal link between the collusive conduct and the price set by the third party outside the cartel. The civil court's binding link to a final decision is only positive: what has been declared binds, but what has not been declared does not limit the debate.
The Chamber also clarifies the value of a non-final decision: finality is only required for the decision to have the irrefutable evidentiary value of article 75.1 of Law 15/2007 on Competition Defence, but its absence does not bar the follow-on action, since the civil court may assess it, together with the rest of the evidence, as an instrument of conviction of great authority.
Minimum compensable damage: the novel contribution
The most relevant contribution of the ruling is the express formulation of a minimum compensable damage estimated judicially. Drawing on the principles of effectiveness and full compensation, the cartel damage presumption and article 17 of Directive 2014/104/EU, the Chamber concludes that the extraordinary difficulty of quantification cannot lead to denying all compensation.
Once the harm is proven, the court may recognise a minimum damage reasonably inferable from the circumstances of the case through reasoned judicial estimation. It is neither a liquidated nor a punitive award, nor a mandatory rule. Here the 2 percent is justified by the lower intensity of the conduct, predominantly informational, its discontinuity, a market share close to 50 percent and price dispersion. The judicial presumption of damage under article 386 of the Civil Procedure Act was built on the proven conduct and its effect on raw milk prices, which the defendants' expert reports did not rebut; the claimant's evidentiary effort with an expert report, although rejected, sufficed to resort to judicial estimation.
What it means for practice
According to the commentary consulted, the ruling keeps the starting point of limitation at finality, preserves the value of a non-final decision as evidence of great authority and accepts a minimum damage estimated by the court. The umbrella effect, by contrast, requires specific proof of the causal link.
Source: Código Civil. Boletín de actualidad de derecho civil, commentary on STS 1635/2026, of 21 October (30 October 2026). This is a secondary source: the full text of the ruling could not be consulted.
Related links
Fuentes
- codigo-civil.es. Accessed 2 November 2026.
The specific data in this article come from the official sources cited.
