The EU Competitiveness Council adopted the Regulation this week which had been proposed by the European Commission in September 2000. It will modernise the 40-year old rules governing how to enforce the EU Treaty's provisions on agreements between undertakings which may restrict competition and abuses of a dominant position.
The core features of the proposed reforms concern Article 81 of the EC Treaty, a cornerstone of EU competition law. The text of Article 81 will help make sense of the following reforms within the Regulation:
the Regulation abolishes the system of notification of all agreements between undertakings within the scope of Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty (see the text at the above link) in order to obtain individual antitrust exemption according to Article 81(3) of the EC Treaty (again, refer to the text); and
it makes the exemption provisions of Article 81(3) directly applicable in national law, thus allowing the Commission, the national competition authorities and national courts to apply the antitrust exemption as set forth in Article 81(3). All enforcement bodies involved will closely co-operate in applying the antitrust exemption.
According to the Commission, the proposed Regulation will put more responsibility in the hands of the companies which will need to ensure themselves that their agreements do not restrict competition, ending unnecessary bureaucracy and legal costs.
The Commission will adopt in 2003 a number of Notices explaining how certain concepts of the Regulation must be interpreted.
The text of the Regulation is not yet available.
