Le restrizioni verticali della concorrenza nel nuovo VBER

The number and variety of distribution and supply agreements as well as their commercial significance are incalculable, given that they are in common use even by small and medium-sized enterprises. A simple self-assessment of their competitive significance by the parties would be very costly in terms of legal uncertainty. For these reasons, the European Commission has for a long time regulated the restrictions of competition contained in the agreements in question by making use of its power to exempt entire categories of agreements from the prohibition of Article 101(1).2 This has been done, on the one hand, through the adoption of a number of sector-specific exemption regulations and, on the other hand, through a general block exemption regulation that has been refor- mulated several times, and always accompanied by updated versions of specific ‘Guidelines on Vertical Restraints’. On 1 June 2022, Exemption Regulation No 2022/720 came into force, replacing Regulation No 330/2010. The subject of this article is the systematic analysis of the new block exemption regulation, which is intended to regulate (until May 2034) the competition aspects of most distribution and supply contracts in the European Union. It will be referred to by the acronym ordinarily used both in the specialized literature and in the day-to-day reality of companies, namely, VBER (Vertical Block Exemption Regulation)