In spring 2022, the European Commission published the status of its initiative to revise the EU competition rules on “horizontal agreements between companies” as follows (https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/13058-Horizontal-agreements-between-companies-revision-of-EU-competition-rules_en):
„This initiative will revise:
– the rules exempting R&D and specialisation agreements from aspects of EU competition law
– the guidelines accompanying these rules.
The aim is to:
– give companies clear guidance on what horizontal cooperation agreements they can conclude without risk of infringing competition law
– simplify administrative supervision of horizontal cooperation agreements by the Commission, national competition authorities and national courts.“
This initiative was necessary because the regulations mentioned will expire on December 31, 2022. The final version is expected to be adopted at the end of the year 2022. These regulations are the EU antitrust backbone for research and development agreements as well as for specialisation agreements and must therefore be observed when drafting such contracts. Otherwise, the nullity of these contracts and heavy fines threaten.