European Union: Commission adopts revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation and Vertical Guidelines

On 10 May 2022, the European Commission adopted and published the revised Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER) and Vertical Guidelines, which aim to better tackle competition issues arising from digital business models, especially e-commerce and online sales. The definition of "suppliers" in Article 1(1)(d) of VBER was amended to include platforms and online intermediaries. Furthermore, the calculation of market share for platforms and online intermediaries that are defined as "suppliers" will consider both the online intermediary market where the "suppliers" are active and the local market where the transaction takes place. The regulation specifies how vertical agreements are to be defined in the digital markets under Article 2(6) VBER and includes a new differentiation between object and effect restrictions. Finally, the updated VBER goes more in-depth about online sales in article 4(b) to (d), which means that suppliers can now set quality requirements for online sales and online advertising, among other measures. The current VBER will expire on 31 May 2022 and the revised VBER will enter into force on 1 June 2022.