A number of Block licences or category licences\/declarations have been issued by the Commission and the Competition Authority. They vary from some very general exemptions to sector-specific exemptions. The terms of the exemption or licence will set out types of conditions and stipulations which are permitted (\u201cwhite clauses\u201d) and \/ certain types of clauses which are not permitted (\u201cblack clauses\u201d).<\/p>\n
The Vertical Agreements Declaration applies to agreements between participants at different levels in the market, i.e. wholesalers and retailers, where their market share does not exceed 30%. The agreement may not contain, for example, contain black clauses such as resale price maintenance restrictions and restrictions on the kinds of customers who may buy.<\/p>\n
A distribution agreement is an example of an agreement which may restrict competition in a way that is objectively justifiable in that it brings benefits which would not be achievable in a free for all arrangement. It may permit sufficient critical mass in a way which ultimately benefits consumers.<\/p>\n
The Vertical Agreements Declaration has exceptions to certain otherwise impermissible conditions which facilitate selective distribution. However, there are strict time limits and conditions applicable, which seek to achieve a balance.<\/p>\n
\n <\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Agreements and Practices EU, UK and Irish legislation prohibit agreements, concerted practices and decisions by businesses or businesses association which have as their the object or effect the prevention, restriction or distortion of competition. The prohibition covers formal and informal agreements, arrangements and tacit understandings between businesses not to compete or to limit competition. EU […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159,125],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12255"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20535,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12255\/revisions\/20535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}