Revised De Minimis Notice

04 July 2014
by camilleripreziosi -- last modified 04 July 2014

On 25 June 2014 the EU Commission revised its notice on agreements of minor importance which do not appreciably restrict competition under Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The changes in the revised Notice are few, mainly being the codification of recent practice that agreements which contain restrictions by object will always be deemed to appreciably affect competition, regardless of the size of the parties. Notably, there are no changes to the market share thresholds in the Notice.

In addition to the revised Notice the Commission has also issued an accompanying Commission Staff Working Document, Guidance on restrictions of competition "by object" for the purpose of defining which agreements may benefit from the De Minimis Notice setting out the restrictions which have, in previous cases, been found to be restrictions by object. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but merely a guiding document and both the Commission and the Courts could find that a restriction is a restriction by object even though it is not in this document.

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