The EU Commission’s Proposals for Regulating New Car Sales: Article 101 meets Economics 1.01

In December 2009, the EU Commission published its proposals for the new European regime to regulate vertical restraints in the motor vehicles sector under Article 101 (formerly Article 81).1 The plans involve the continuation of the old sector-specific Motor Vehicles Block Exemption Regulation (“MVBER”) for new car sales until 2013 after which time the general Block Exemption Regulation (“BER”) for vertical agreements will apply and the sector-specific rules will cease to exist.2