Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Competition ° Agreements, decisions and concerted practices ° Prohibition ° Block exemption ° Regulation No 123/85 ° Purpose ° Exemption for certain restrictions of competition agreed on between manufacturers and concessionaires in the motor vehicle industry ° Prohibition of independent reselling of new vehicles by a trader who is outside the official distribution network for the make concerned and is not an authorized intermediary ° None

(Commission Regulation No 123/85)

Summary

Regulation No 123/85 on the application of Article 85(3) of the Treaty to certain categories of motor vehicle distribution and servicing agreements merely provides economic agents in the motor vehicle industry with certain possibilities enabling them to remove their distribution and servicing agreements from the scope of the prohibition contained in Article 85(1) of the Treaty despite the inclusion in those agreements of certain types of exclusivity and no-competition clauses. It concerns only contractual relations between suppliers and their approved distributors and, although it states what the parties to such agreements may or may not undertake to do in relations with third parties, it does not, in contrast, serve to regulate the activities of such third parties, who may operate in the market outside the framework of distribution agreements.

Regulation No 123/85 must therefore be interpreted as not preventing a trader who is neither an approved reseller in the distribution network of a manufacturer of a particular make of motor vehicle nor an authorized intermediary within the meaning of Article 3(11) of that regulation from carrying on an independent business reselling new vehicles of that make.