Abstract
Dualisms may appear on several levels in distribution: dual pricing as regards different pricing for products resold off- and online, dual role agents as regards agents acting for the same supplier both as independent distributor and agent and dual distribution as regards suppliers and their distributors competing. This chapter aims at briefly summarizing the relevant restrictions and guard rails in order to structure distribution correspondingly.
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Notes
- 1.
VGL, para. 209, similar to the definition in VGL 2010, para. 52(d).
- 2.
Cf. for other examples of online sales restrictions Rohrßen (2018, p. 40).
- 3.
VGL 2010, para. 64 and 52.
- 4.
VGL 2010, para. 52.
- 5.
VGL 2010, para. 52 sentence 8.
- 6.
Bundeskartellamt, Cases B7-11/13 (BSH), B5-144/13 (Gardena), B5-100/10 (Dornbracht).
- 7.
Kaiser (2017, p. 582).
- 8.
Pautke and Billinger (2016, pp. 40 et seq.). The Bundeskartellamt considered rebates to be lawful if the same for offline and online sales and based on discount-relevant, realisable services (quality requirements), even if “pure players” did not receive a full discount as a result (Bundeskartellamt, Case B7-11/13, Case Report of 23 December 2013, p. 5 [BSH]). Also fixed subsidies independent of turnover or volume, intended to cushion costs associated with stationary distribution, were seen as lawful (Bundeskartellamt 2013, p. 21).
- 9.
VGL, para. 209.
- 10.
VBER, Recital 12.
- 11.
Aberle (2022, p. 504).
- 12.
Article 1(1)(c) VBER.
- 13.
VGL, para. 90 and 106.
- 14.
VGL, para. 90.
- 15.
EU:C:1991:91 (Delimitis), para. 21 (“whether there are real concrete possibilities for a new competitor …”); ECLI:EU:C:2020:52 (Generics [UK] and Others) para. 36 et seq. (“… it must be determined whether there would have existed, in the absence of that agreement, real and concrete possibilities for that undertaking to enter that market and compete with the undertakings established in that market … there can be no finding of a potential competitive relationship as an inference merely from the purely hypothetical possibility of such entry or even from the mere wish or desire of the manufacturer of generic medicines to enter the market. Conversely, there is no requirement that it must be demonstrated with certainty that that manufacturer will in fact enter the market concerned and, a fortiori, that it will be capable, thereafter, of retaining its place there”).
- 16.
Cf. only ECLI:EU:C:2020:52 (Generics [UK] and Others) para. 39; ECLI:EU:C:2021:243 (Lundbeck) para. 55.
- 17.
In favour of applying the agency-typical risk assessment under competition law also to dual role agents e.g. Metzlaff (2018, Artikel 101 para. 171).
- 18.
Cf. Goßler and Wentzel (2021, p. 344).
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Rohrßen, B. (2023). Dual Distribution and Other Dualisms. In: VBER 2022: EU Competition Law for Vertical Agreements. Law for Professionals. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35024-5_8
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