The EC Commission's Draft Horizontal Guidelines: Presumed Guilty when Having a Chat

Posted by D. Daniel Sokol

Peter D. Camesasca, Anna K. Schmidt, and Michael J. Clancy (all Covington) provide their thoughts on The EC Commission's Draft Horizontal Guidelines: Presumed Guilty when Having a Chat.

ABSTRACT: In the draft guidelines for horizontal restrictions, the European Commission has outlined a new approach to information exchange among businesses. In that approach, certain categories of exchanges would be regarded, in substance, as restrictions by object (almost per se illegality). This would be so where future information is exchanged but could be extended where present and/or past information is concerned. For the authors, that new position adopted by the European Commission fails to consider whether information exchanges are capable of harming competition. It also indicates a tendency on the part of that institution to move from the provision of guidance to opening the widest possible scope for intervention.