European Union Competition Law, anti-competitive agreements, Article 101 TFEU, market threshold, exemption regulations, consumer benefits, internal market, European Commission
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Abstract
This document outlines the EU's regulations on anti-competitive agreements, their impact on the internal market, and the conditions for exemption under Article 101§3 of the TFEU.
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[...] As an example, the consultation between two distributors on prices constitutes an agreement by object which will be systematically sanctioned. The Commission will analyze in this case the terms of the agreement, the purpose pursued by the agreement but also the context in which it occurs and finally the behavior of the companies on the market in question. Restrictions by effect are not objectively likely to lead to a restriction but they cause, in fact, harm to competition. Article 101§1 draws up a non-exhaustive list of these practices such as market sharing (geographic, customer, product), the sales system or restrictions on production. [...]
[...] Without compliance with these conditions, the agreement will not be exempted and will be struck down by article 101§2. The Commission's exemption regulations The European Commission has also established category exemption regulations for certain types of agreements that are presumed to comply with the conditions of Article 101§3. These regulations, valid for 10 years, may concern horizontal agreements between two competing companies (suppliers and suppliers). For example, we can mention the regulation 1218/2010 on agreements on specialisation did not exceed 20%. This allows for the exemption of unilateral specialization agreements or reciprocal specialization agreements. [...]
[...] According to the Commission, these efficiency gains must be explicit, have a direct link between the agreement and the gains produced. It only imposes an economic vision of these gains, while the CJEU, on the occasion of a Renia 1985 judgment, assert that these gains should not only be economic but also ensure the creation of jobs as well as their maintenance during periods of crisis. Finally, article 101§3 adds that consumers must also be able to benefit from the exempted agreement. [...]
[...] Concerted practice must be characterised as an anti-competitive agreement under European law, in order to affect trade between Member States significantly. This notion of trade impact is central because without it, European law would not apply. Thus, in a judgment Hugin v Commission 1979, It is understood that the agreement must be capable of affecting trade between Member States and thus of harming the realization of the internal market, for example by compartmentalizing national markets or modifying the structure of competition. [...]
[...] This type of agreement is exempt and justified because it allows small businesses that do not have a lot of resources to specialize only in one product, while large businesses can specialize in several technologies. On the other hand, we find the regulations related to vertical agreements (suppliers - distributors) such as the regulation 487/2009 on the field of air transport. These regulations always follow the same logic, they concern agreements representing a certain market threshold, they must meet the conditions for proper exemption and must not contain restrictive competition restrictions (Art that can be annulled, or well-characterized restrictions such as the price agreement that leads to the total nullity of the agreement. [...]
