EC adopts revised competition rules for vertical agreements

The European Commission adopted a Regulation block exempting agreements between manufacturers and distributors for the sale of products and services. The Regulation and accompanying Guidelines take into account the development, in the last 10 years, of the Internet as a force for online sales and for cross-border commerce, something that the Commission wants to promote as it increases consumer choice and price competition. The basic principle remains that companies are free to decide how their products are distributed, provided their agreements do not contain price-fixing or other hardcore restrictions, and both manufacturer and distributor do not have more than a 30% market share. Approved distributors are free to sell on the Internet without limitation on quantities, customers' location and restrictions on prices.  The key documents can be found here:

Click here for the Commission Regulation on the application of Article 101(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to categories of vertical agreements and concerted practices.

Click here for the Guidelines on Vertical Agreements.

Click here for the Press Release.

Click here for FAQs.

FCC official says Comcast ruling may impact broadband plan

A top Federal Communications Commission official acknowledged on Wednesday that the Obama administration's ambitious plan to expand broadband access could be impacted by a court ruling that limited the agency's authority to regulate operations of network providers.

Click here to read the news from Reuters.

Choice and Competition in Public Services – A guide for policy makers

This report was prepared for the OFT by Frontier Economics.  It does not aim to comment on whether particular decisions to open up public service markets have been right or wrong, or provide a critique of government policies to date. Instead, the key aim is to identify general lessons that can be learnt from the experience so far. Drawing on these it then provides a framework for policy makers to help identify critical success factors when designing market mechanisms in public services.

Click here to read the report.

Ruling in Google trademark case

The CJEU found that Google had not infringed trade mark law by allowing advertisers to purchase keywords corresponding to their competitors’ trade marks.

Click here to read the EU press release.

Commission approves Oracle/Sun merger

The Commission has approved, unconditionally, the merger of Sun and Oracle following a four month investigation of the deal.

In reaching its decision, the Commission, which had been concerned about the removal of the competition constraints exerted by MySQL over Oracle, took into account Oracle’s public announcement of 14 December 2009 of a series of pledges to customers, users and developers of MySQL concerning issues such as the continued release of future versions of MySQL under the GPL (General Public Licence) open source licence.

Click here to read the Reuters article.