The EU Geo-Blocking Regulation from a Competition Law Perspective

Key Points: - With its rationale and scope, the GeoBR has a strong competition law dimension and a considerable overlap with general competition law. -An analysis of the interaction between the GeoBR and general competition law shows that the Regulation’s rigidity risks removing appropriate levers of flexibility built into general competition law, for instance regarding market entry investments. - GeoBR enforcement is presently characterised by heterogeneity between the EU Member States, unclear responsibilities, and an arguably inappropriate cumulation of GeoBR and general competition law sanctions, which suggests its integration into general competition law in the future. Introduction: Barrier-free trade in the Union-internal markets has, from early on, been a key goal of European Union law. Nonetheless, cross-border B2C transactions are, at least according to the perception of the EU lawmaker, still at a relatively low level, even in the e-commerce sector where geographic distance tends to matter less than for on-site transactions. Trade practices creating barriers between territories in the Union contribute to this situation. Against this background, the EU has recently enacted the so-called ‘Geo-blocking Regulation’, applicable as of 3 December 2018.4 The present contribution analyses the main content of the Regulation and assesses, in particular, its interaction with (other parts of) EU competition law