The Gate Before the Merits

Antitrust Standing and Environmental Grievances in the United States, the United Kingdom and India

Résumé

Competition law hands private litigants treble damages in some systems, binding infringement findings in others, and a ready-made liability theory against dominant firms. Environmental claimants have noticed. This paper asks how far the rules on who may sue stop a private plaintiff from using antitrust to remedy environmental and climate harm that is tied to market power. It reads the United States, the United Kingdom and India side by side, with short references to the European Union, Germany and the Netherlands. The argument is that standing doctrine excludes purely environmental injury almost completely, because every system measures harm through the market and treats ecological loss as something that happens outside it. The same doctrine leaves a real opening for plaintiffs who can show that collusion or dominance raised their prices, lowered the quality of what they bought or suppressed cleaner technology. The United States closes the door in layers. The United Kingdom opens it wide and then narrows the corridor behind it. India invites almost anyone to start a complaint but gives few of them anything to collect. The paper closes by defending the current gatekeeping and proposing better coordination between competition and environmental forums as the sounder reform.