Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Competition ° Agreements, decisions and concerted practices ° Restriction on competition ° Prohibition on resale and exports

(EEC Treaty, Art. 85(1))

2. Competition ° Agreements, decisions and concerted practices ° Restriction on competition ° Criteria for assessment ° Anti-competitive object ° Sufficient

(EEC Treaty, Art. 85(1))

3. Competition ° Community rules ° Infringements ° Carried out intentionally ° Meaning

(Regulation No 17 of the Council, Art. 15(2))

Summary

1. By its very nature, a clause prohibiting exports constitutes a restriction on competition, whether it is adopted at the instigation of the supplier or of the customer, since the agreed purpose of the contracting parties is to endeavour to isolate a part of the market.

2. The fact that a clause in an agreement between undertakings, whose object is to restrict competition, has not been implemented by the contracting parties is not sufficient to remove it from the prohibition in Article 85(1) of the Treaty.

3. For an infringement of the Treaty' s competition rules to be considered to have been committed intentionally, it is not necessary for the undertaking to have been aware that it was infringing a prohibition laid down by those rules; it is sufficient that it was aware that the object of the offending conduct was to restrict competition.