EU Commission scales Vertical Block Exemption Mountain

January 11, 2021
The European Commission (the Commission) closed out its ambitious 2020 antitrust reform agenda with the long-awaited consultation (the Consultation) on reform of the Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (the VBER) and related Guidelines (the VGL), published on December 18, 2020. The Consultation’s proposals, which closely follow the Commission’s October 2020 Inception Impact Assessment (the Inception Impact Assessment), are an important step in the long-running VBER and VGL review. The Commission plans to publish drafts of the new VBER and VGL in mid-2021, in plenty of time to adopt new texts in time for the VBER’s expiration in May 2022.

Antitrust and competition lawyer Jay Modrall, who is based in Brussels, discusses the Consultation, and how it reflects a sea change in the approach to e-commerce in the decade since the current VBER and VGL were developed, in a recent article published by Kluwer Competition Law Blog. Click here to read more.