Competition Weekly e-news

The European Commission is inviting stakeholders such as primary producers, processors, manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and input providers to share their experience with agreements aimed at achieving sustainability objectives in the agri-food supply chains. The feedback will help the Commission to draft guidelines on a new derogation exempting sustainability agreements in the field of agriculture from competition rules under certain conditions.

The European Commission has launched today a public consultation inviting all interested parties to comment on two draft revised Horizontal Block Exemption Regulations on Research & Development (“R&D”) and Specialisation agreements (“R&D BER” and “Specialisation BER” respectively, together “HBERs”) and the draft revised Horizontal Guidelines.

The European Commission has approved under EU State aid rules Malta's map for granting regional aid from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2027, within the framework of the revised Regional aid Guidelines.

The European Commission has approved, under EU State aid rules, €687 million Italian support to compensate providers of commercial long-distance rail passenger services for the damage suffered during the period between 1 July 2020 and 30 April 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictive measures that Italy had to implement to limit the spread of the virus.

The European Commission has approved a €2 billion Hungarian scheme aimed at providing investment support towards a sustainable recovery. The scheme was approved under the State aid Temporary Framework.

The Commission takes note of the General Court's judgment upholding Huhtamäki’s appeal against a 2019 Commission decision. In its decision, the Commission refused to grant Huhtamäki access to certain documents forming part of the administrative file of the State aid investigation into Huhtamäki’s tax treatment in Luxembourg.
The Commission will carefully study the judgment and reflect on possible next steps.
The judgment does not prejudge the outcome of the formal investigation into the tax treatment of Huhtamäki in Luxembourg.

[...] "The report presents the results of the macroeconomic impact of competition policy interventions by the European Commission using the QUEST III macro-model of the EU economy and an EU-wide input-output model. The simulations make use of the information provided by DG Competition on the European Commission’s merger interventions and cartel prohibitions as well as preliminary data on antitrust interventions other than cartels." [...]

[...] "This report assesses the ability of the proposed policy options to ensure that the rules of the R&D BER and the Horizontal Guidelines do not discourage the participation of research institutes and/or academic bodies in R&D cooperation agreements that do not raise competition concerns. The report welcomes proposals for added clarification in both an updated BER and its Guidelines as being necessary, such as around certain temporal and material aspects." [...]

[...] "This report reviews the treatment of specialisation agreements under EU competition rules, exploring if and how these rules hinder procompetitive cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises (“SMEs”), either among them or with larger undertakings." [...]

[...] "Expert advice on the assessment of sustainability benefits in the context of the review of the Commission Guidelines on horizontal cooperation agreements." [...]

[...] "The report [...] discusses three possible tests to identify R&D cooperation agreements between competing SMEs that should be exempted under the R&D BER." [...]

[...] "This Report provides advice to the European Commission on the delineation between restrictions of competition by object on the one hand and by effect on the other in the context of joint purchasing agreements. It examines judgments, decisions and guidance on buyer cartels and joint purchasing and negotiation agreements, both within the EU and in third countries around the world. The Report defines what is meant by a ‘buyer cartel’ and by ‘joint purchasing’, and makes a number of suggestions for the framework of analysis for determining whether such agreements restrict competition by object or by effect." [...]