Tag: Europe Economics

Revised EU rules for vertical agreements unveiled

Posted on

by Becket McGrath & Loukia Kopitsa

On 9 July 2021, the European Commission (the ‘Commission’) published its draft texts for the new Vertical Agreements Block Exemption Regulation (‘VBER’) and Guidelines on Vertical Restraints (‘Guidelines’) for public consultation.  These are the result of an evaluation process, which started in 2018, of the current competition law rules for vertical agreements.  Those rules entered into force in January 2010 and are due to expire at the end of May 2022.

One area that has not changed is the attitude taken to price restrictions.  Despite intense lobbying, the new VBER retains the current approach in classifying resale price maintenance (‘RPM’)as a hardcore restriction of competition that is presumptively unlawful and can be justified only in exceptional circumstances.

The single key theme that emerges most strongly from the new texts is that the Commission agrees with those who have argued that the 2010 regime was unduly favourable to online retailers and marketplaces (principally Amazon).  While the 2010 changes were motivated by a desire to encourage online retail, as a means of developing the single market and improving consumer access to products on a cross-border basis, brands objected that the regime made it too difficult for brands to control online retail.  Should they be retained in the final texts, the proposed changes will make life harder and less certain for online retailers (especially those, such as Amazon, that operate third party marketplaces in parallel) and those doing business with them.  While some of the changes will be welcomed by brands, others introduce additional complexity and uncertainty that are likely to make it harder to apply the VBER in practice.  As a result, it cannot be said that, taken in the round, the new texts mark a distinct improvement on the 2010 regime.

Background

The VBER creates a safe harbour, known as a ‘block exemption’, which protects common forms of distribution agreements from legal challenge under Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), which prohibits anticompetitive agreements, and national equivalent rules.  In principle, any agreement between parties operating at different levels of the supply chain (for example, a brand and a distributor) can benefit from the block exemption, provided that the parties’ market shares do not exceed 30% of the relevant markets and the agreement does not contain any ‘hardcore’ restrictions of competition. 

Hardcore restrictions (e.g., RPM, absolute territorial protection, customer allocation), which are set out in Article 4 of the VBER, are presumed to be so harmful to competition that they render an entire agreement ineligible for protection and presumptively unlawful.  If an agreement contains a less serious ‘excluded restriction’, the specific restriction will be unenforceable, but the rest of the agreement will be protected.  

The Guidelines set out extensive guidance concerning application of the VBER and for assessing the legality of agreements outside of its protective scope.  Taken together, the VBER and Guidelines effectively create a code for the application of EU competition law (and, by extension, national competition laws) to vertical agreements.

Click here to download the full briefing and dive into the main changes of the revised Regulation.

Webinar: Foreign direct investment in Germany and the investor status of the UK

Posted on

On 13 May, Oliver Bretz hosted our monthly live webinar #FDI on the European Foreign Direct Investment Screen #EUFIS, which affects most mergers and investments at this critical time. Oliver had the pleasure of chairing the Microsoft Teams debate alongside Dimitri Slobodenjuk who provided an interesting update on the changes to the German FDI control system.

The discussion also focused on the status of UK investors and UK Private Equity in the EU during the Transition Period.

Notes from the webinar can be found here.

Competition Law and Syndicated Loans – A Framework

Posted on

By Oliver Bretz, Marie Leppard & Helen Bardell

CPI Europe Column edited by Anna Tzanaki (Competition Policy International) & Juan Delgado (Global Economics Group)

This article examines the overall context and potentially relevant issues and considerations for syndicated lending generally, as well as any issues that may arise at each stage of the process.

The Framework for Legal Analysis follows the initial announcement of Euclid Law’s advice to the European Commission and some personal observations on Syndicated Loans published on 26th April 2019.

To read the full article, please follow the link.

Syndicated Loans – Some Personal Observations

Posted on
Deborah Drury (Europe Economics) and Oliver Bretz (Euclid Law)

A lot has been written already about the European Commission study into Syndicated Loans, which Europe Economics and Euclid Law were commissioned to undertake by DG Competition. We thought it appropriate to share some short personal observations on the study and its impact on compliance policies with financial institutions. These views are intensely personal and are not attributable to anyone other than ourselves.

The most striking point was the absence of any available precedent to apply competition law to syndicated lending. Yes, there had been the case in Spain but that was effectively a straight case of unlawful horizontal coordination behind the back of the borrower. So there was no precedent at all anywhere in the EU that could provide any guidance. As a result, we had to go back to first principles and develop a legal framework with risk assessments but without taking a view whether something could nor could not infringe Art 101(1) or indeed be subject to exemption under 101(3). Those questions are very fact-specific and we were never going to conduct an actual investigation as part of the Study.

So where did we start? Ultimately the process was one of fact-finding using the basic legal framework that we had developed. This fact-finding was not based on any formal powers and we are very grateful for the cooperation we received on a voluntary basis from a large number of financial services organisations. We also adopted a phased approach to the different stages of origination and syndication in order to identify the relevant risk factors. Again, it should be stressed that we relied on voluntary cooperation in identifying those risks.

The picture that emerged was that markets are generally functioning well for borrowers and that compliance procedures are generally robust. This was particularly the case in the LBO sector where large financial institutions with sophisticated compliance approaches predominate. That market was also characterised by fragmentation, which is usually a sign of an absence of market power, although we did not have the ability to obtain hard data to assess market shares.

In relation to Project Finance and Infrastructure the conclusions on competition risks were less obvious. We identified that there was more of a risk that banks could have a degree of market power in relation to specific types projects. For example a wind-farm project in Eastern Europe might not attract a wealth of offers from international banks. That may be down to a lack of experience, appetite or indeed pricing, which we did not seek to opine on as part of the Study. However, it is striking that the market participants in Project Finance and Infrastructure are quite different from those in LBOs. Market power in itself is not a problem, of course, as long as no borrower-adverse actions are taken on the back of that market power. And in the absence of market power, some actions such as the bundling of ancillary services (without having a single agreed price), may be a regulatory issue, but it is hard to conceive that there could be an actual competition problem. This is clearly an area where the Commission and national financial regulators would wish to remain vigilant. Another area where market power could potentially exist is in relation to a refinancing situation, either just before or after an event of default. Although it is difficult to conceive of an abuse of dominance case in relation to a single borrower in a period of short-term distress, this should remain an area of concern to the Commission and national regulators – and banks should proceed with great caution. A clear benefit of the Study is the development of a usable compliance framework (in the absence of EU precedents), which will enable institutions of all sizes to identify risk factors in deals and take appropriate compliance action. Financial institutions are likely to review compliance procedures, as scrutiny of the sector will continue over the coming months and years.

A copy of the study can be found HERE

Euclid Law and Europe Economics advise European Commission on Syndicated Loans

Posted on

Euclid Law is proud to have cooperated with Europe Economics in advising the European Commission in the EU loan syndication and its impact on competition in credit markets. This study report brought great insight and perspective on its efficiency as a source of finance. Euclid Law was selected to co-author this research in light of its expertise in this area: both Oliver Bretz and Marie Leppard have many years of experience advising banks and other financial institutions on the potential competition law risks which can arise out of a loan (or bond) syndication.

The full report can be found here.