EU Distribution Law

Joanna Goyder

The new edition of EU Distribution Law, published six years after the previous edition, is concerned with the competition rules prohibiting anti-competitive agreements and behaviour affecting trade between Member States, and the special rules which protect commercial agents. Under EU law such anti-competitive agreements may be void and substantial fines imposed and liability in damages may result. To minimise their risk companies and their advisers must therefore understand the current rules and exemptions.

In 2010 fully revised EU legislation and guidelines governing distribution and supply agreements came into effect. New features include an increased focus on powerful buyers and on internet sales, and there is also a more generous approach to resale price maintenance. At the same time the special regime for the motor vehicle sector was significantly amended. The European Commission, as well as national courts and competition authorities, actively apply EU competition rules in this area, so companies need to take the new rules fully into account. Furthermore, the continuing enlargement of the EU, most recently in 2007 to 27 Member States, and the ever-expanding case law of the European courts, means that EU law has an ever wider and more pronounced impact.

This comprehensively rewritten and updated new edition of a well-known text combines expert commentary with clear, practical advice on the law affecting distribution agreements, exclusive supply, purchase agreements, franchising, agency and selective distribution.

This book will be essential reading for commercial and competition lawyers, and the legal departments of manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and retailers currently trading or intending to trade within the European Union.

...the release of the 5th edn of Joanna Goyder’s classic EU Distribution Law could not be any timelier and is most welcome. ...EU Distribution Law is an easily recommendable book. It fully accomplishes the objectives pursued by the author. In a modest 235 pages of content, the author provides a well-structured and easy to read guide to EU competition rules applying to distribution agreements. Like previous editions in the past, and even more so since the entry into effect of Regulation 1/2003 which has shifted more responsibility on to companies and their advisers for the assessment of agreements under TFEU art. 101, the new edition will prove essential and indispensible reading for all practitioners, in-house counsel, antitrust enforcers, academics and companies involved in or interested in distribution contracts and practices in connection with EU competition law.” – Riccardo Sciaudone, European Competition Law Review, Volume 33, Issue 2, 2012

“...an excellent introduction for the non-specialized target audience, and even competition lawyers can profit from the detailed discussions in Chapters 4-6.” – Florian Wagner-von Papp, World Competition Law and Economics Review, 34(3)

“The introduction to EU distribution law contained in Chapters 1 to 3 ... is admirably concise. Chapters 4 to 7 form the main body of the work and are drafted in a clear and precise style. Chapter 7 on the future of EU distribution law deals mainly with the increasingly economics-based and decentralised nature of the competition law analysis of restrictions on competition. Of particular interest are the thought-provoking comments on Internet sales.” – Philippe Prevel, Concurrences