The EU Court of Justice confirms that the Commission must assess whether an agreement to limit parallel trade in medicines has pro-competitive benefits (GlaxoSmithKline)

On 6 October, the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) issued another “score draw” judgment [1] in the long-running battle of R&D-based pharmaceutical companies to limit parallel trade in medicines across the EU. While the ECJ required the European Commission to conduct an in-depth examination of whether EU competition rules can be declared inapplicable to GlaxoSmithKline’s Spanish general sales conditions, it also confirmed that an agreement limiting parallel trade is a restriction of competition “by object”. Provided pharmaceutical companies can put forward cogent evidence of appreciable efficiencies, the need to conduct a full investigation into whether an exemption is available is