bnt Competition Practice: Revised EU horizontal guidelines
The regulation on R&D agreements and the regulation on specialisation agreements exempt from competition rules certain R&D, specialization and production agreements between competitors. The scope of the R&D regulation has been considerably extended, now not only covering R&D activities carried out jointly but also so-called ‘paid-for research' agreements where one party finances R&D activities carried out by the other party. The new rules also give parties more scope to jointly exploit R&D results. Additionally, the regulations describe applicability of exemptions, setting out definitions of related agreements, market share thresholds and their application, and the concept of hardcore restrictions. The regulations entered into force on 1 January 2011, replacing the two previous regulations.
The first key feature of the guidelines on horizontal co-operation agreements is a new chapter on information exchange. This is vastly important in avoiding infringement of EU antitrust provisions in everyday business operation and cooperation between competitors. The guidelines give clear and comprehensive guidance on how to assess the compatibility of information exchanges with European competition law. Additionally, the guidelines contain a substantial revision of the chapter on standardisation agreements by promoting an open and transparent standard-setting system related to licensing costs for intellectual property rights, as well as describing criteria under which standardisation agreements comply with EU competition rules ('safe harbour'). The guidelines will be applicable as soon as they have been published in the Official Journal of the EU and they supersede previous guidelines.
