The New Block Exemption Regulation

The European Commission takes a dim view of cartels, price-fixing and anti-competitive practices, but it does make exceptions for certain types of agreements made between undertakings operating at different levels of the supply chain. Marco Hickey and Aoife Nic Lochlainn explain.

Under EU law (specifically article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), there is a general ban on agreements and practices that might affect trade between EU member states and which might prevent, restrict or distort competition within the internal market. Article 101 provides a list of examples of such prohibited agreements, including price-fixing agreements, market-sharing arrangements and agreements to limit or control levels of production (all of which can loosely be described as cartel-type activities), as well as contracts which impose supplementary obligations on parties that have no connection to the contract (that is, tie-in arrangements).