Most cooperative agreements between competitors are deemed to be anti-competitive and prohibited by EU law and equivalent laws in most EU Member States. There are nevertheless four limited classes of agreement that are allowed by a special sectoral bloc exemption, covering agreements on:
- Joint calculations, tables and studies
- Standard policy conditions and models on profits
- Common coverage of certain types of risks (pools)
- Security devices / safety equipment.
However, the relevant regulation is due to expire in 2010.
The Commission has to submit a report to the European Parliament and Council of Ministers by March next year on its functioning, together with any proposals for amendment in the light of experience.
The Commission is now busy analysing comments received during the public consultation in the summer, as well as responses to a series of targeted questionnaires it has sent key stakeholders, public authorities and consumer organisations.
The purpose of the public consultation was primarily information seeking. However, the Commission never tires of saying that sector-specific block exemption regulations are very much the exception and is seriously questioning whether there remain sufficient grounds to justify retaining any special rules at all in the insurance sector. Parties can still get an individual exemption, but the onus in on them to "self-assess" their agreements and check if the exemption conditions are met in each particular case.
The public responses are due to be posted to the Europa website in a matter of days, but one can expect a chorus of support for retaining most of, if not all, the current exemptions.
Realistically, though, individual insurers should work on the assumption that the automatic exemption will be withdrawn or much watered down and start a legal review of all their collaborative arrangements, seeing what competition problems they would raise in the absence of the exemption and identifying possible other commercial solutions.
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