Restriction of parallel trade in pharmaceutical industry

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas vienas iš „sunkiųjų“ vertikaliųjų apribojimų konkurencijos teisėje – lygiagrečios prekybos draudimas (ribojimas), koncentruojantis į tokio pobūdžio susitarimų vertinimą farmacijos sektoriaus kontekste. Straipsnyje atskleidžiama, kad dėl specifinės ekonominės ir teisinės farmacijos sektoriaus aplinkos lygiagrečios prekybos ribojimo susitarimai ne visada turėtų būti laikomi antikonkurenciniais. Diskutuojama, kiek yra pagrįsta, kad tokio pobūdžio susitarimų itin neigiamas vertinimas yra labiau nulemtas Europos Sąjungos vidaus rinkos integracijos tikslo nei teisinės ar ekonominės logikos.Since the very creation of the European Union restriction of parallel trade, absolute territorial protection and other vertical restraints of similar effect have been considered as a threat to the integration process of the internal market and therefore treated with extreme harshness. Vertical restraints of such kind have been considered having as their object the restriction of competition by the European Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Union; therefore they were held as automatically infringing Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Much more complicated situation developed in the pharmaceutical industry, where due to the existing specific legal and economic environment treatment of the parallel trade in prescription medicines has been ambiguous. There were significant doubts whether is it reasonable to maintain extremely negative attitude towards restrictions of parallel trade in this industry considering very questionable benefits that parallel trade brings to the final consumer. This position, substantiated by the economic logic, has been supported by the Advocate General and the General Court respectively in Syfait and GlaxoSmithKline cases. However in both cases the final word belonged to the Court of Justice which refused to acknowledge the peculiarities of the pharmaceutical industry and deprived it of any exclusivity in the course of application of competition rules. Vertical agreements restricting parallel trade continued to be treated as hardcore vertical restraints, restricting competition by their own object. The article examines these developments in the assessment of restrictions of parallel trade in the pharmaceutical industry. It is discussed whether there is a space for more lenient approach towards such agreements in the EU competition law. It is concluded that the absolute focus towards the EU internal market integration goal prohibits the proper, economically reasoned assessment of such agreements, notwithstanding the fact that the pursuit of the market integration goal in certain cases may not lead to the maximization of the consumer welfare