Swiss chemicals company welcomes Amsterdam ruling, but wider litigation continues
Shell has suffered a setback in its attempt to recover damages arising from the European Commission’s 2020 decision on the ethylene purchasing cartel.
Swiss specialty chemicals company Clariant announced that the Amsterdam District Court has dismissed in its entirety Shell’s damages claim against Clariant and three other defendants. The court also rejected a related declaratory judgment claim brought by the Stichting Ethylene Claims litigation vehicle. Clariant Ltd.
For Clariant, the judgment represents a significant legal victory.
The company said the ruling confirms its long-held position that Shell suffered no harm attributable to Clariant’s conduct, maintaining that the conduct identified by the European Commission produced no actual market effects. Clariant added that it will continue defending the remaining proceedings in both the Netherlands and Germany. Clariant Ltd.
The Background
The dispute has its origins in a July 2020 European Commission competition case.
The Commission concluded that Clariant, Celanese, Orbia and Westlake had participated in a cartel involving the purchase of ethylene between 2011 and 2017 by exchanging commercially sensitive information in an effort to influence the monthly contract price of the chemical feedstock. The companies cooperated with the investigation and received substantial fines. Polimerica.it
Following that decision, several major petrochemical producers—including Shell, BASF, OMV, TotalEnergies, Dow and later LyondellBasell—filed civil actions seeking compensation, arguing that they paid artificially depressed or distorted prices because of the cartel. SWI swissinfo.ch
A Blow to One Claim—Not the Entire Litigation
The Amsterdam ruling does not bring the broader litigation to an end.
Rather, it dismisses Shell’s damages claim against Clariant in this particular action. Other proceedings involving different claimants and jurisdictions remain active, and Clariant has stated that it will continue to defend itself vigorously. Clariant Ltd.
Morningstar, citing Dow Jones Newswires, reported that Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comment following the judgment. Morningstar
Why It Matters
Competition-law cases often continue long after regulators have imposed fines.
The regulatory decision establishes whether competition law was breached, but companies claiming financial losses must still persuade civil courts that they suffered measurable damage as a consequence of the conduct.
The Amsterdam District Court has now concluded that, in Shell’s case against Clariant, that threshold was not met. Whether other claimants will fare differently remains to be seen.
Editorial Comment
Most readers will never have heard of the ethylene purchasing cartel.
Yet it illustrates how competition cases can generate years of follow-on litigation involving some of the world’s largest chemical and energy companies.
For Shell, this ruling represents a legal disappointment rather than a strategic crisis. For Clariant, it is an important vindication of its long-standing argument that, whatever the European Commission found in 2020, Shell had failed to demonstrate compensable harm in this case.
The broader legal battle, however, is far from over.
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