On 14 December 2010 the European Commission published new rules
on cooperation agreements between competitors. The reform package
includes revised guidelines for appraising horizontal agreements,
as well as the two new block exemption regulations for categories
of research and development agreements and for categories of
specialisation and production agreements. Both regulations enter
into force on 1 January 2011, but grant a transitional period of
two years for those agreements which fulfil the exemption criteria
of the old regulations yet do not fall under the new regulations.
The amendments and innovations essentially concern the areas
information exchange, standardisation, as well as research and
development agreements between competitors.
