This chapter presents evidence based on typological data, corpora and an artificial language learning experiment that supports the claim that form–meaning correspondences in causative constructions are best explained by the Principle of Communicative Efficiency. Other accounts which involve iconicity and productivity as explanatory factors are less successful in predicting and explaining the famous correlation between formal and semantic integration of events in causative constructions. Moreover, this account explains other form–meaning correspondences beyond event integration and the distinction between direct and indirect causation, such as intentional or accidental causation. Finally, this account predicts correctly the emergence of efficient formal asymmetries in an artificial language learning experiment.

National courts have generally embraced a multifold account for causation in virtually all Member States. However, the different national tort law systems structure the multi-stage accounts differently. National judges enforce competition law rules largely relying on their domestic laws of obligations. For this reason, this chapter examines the bundle of tort law and competition law that applies to establish causation in competition damages actions before national courts of England, Germany, France and Italy. These four jurisdictions were selected because of the size of their economies, the amount of litigation and the fact that they show four different, almost paradigmatic, approaches to causation.