The EU Commission publishes consultation on Vertical Block Exemption Regulation policy options

On 18 December 2020 the Commission published a further consultation on its proposals for a revised vertical agreements block exemption Regulation (VBER) and guidelines. The Commission’s steps to date, and conclusions of its evaluation phase, are set out in our HSF Notes post from 17 September 2020. In essence the evaluation concluded that the current rules are still relevant and useful to businesses, but there are certain areas that could be improved. The latest consultation follows the inception impact assessment published by the Commission in October 2020 (see our HSF Notes post from 26 October 2020) to inform the updated version of the VBER and guidelines. The current consultation proposes the same policy options as in the initial impact assessment, and effectively asks for more