The purpose of this document is to specify the conditions under which the so-called agreements of minor importance, affecting trade between the Member States of the European Union, are excluded or not from the scope of the prohibition of anti-competitive agreements referred to in Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (hereinafter “TFEU”).

The new notice keeps the same market share thresholds which suffice to consider that the agreement is not an appreciable restriction of competition on the EU market. As a consequence, the agreements are considered as of minor importance if the combined market share of the undertakings concerned do not exceed 10% when undertakings are competitors (horizontal agreement) and 15% when the agreement is concluded between non-competing undertakings (vertical agreement). If it is difficult to give the nature of the agreement (between competitors or between non-competitors), the ceiling of the market share taken into consideration is the lowest of the two thresholds, which is 10%.

The Commission specifies that the agreements containing restrictions of competition by their object cannot be considered as being of minor importance even if the cumulated percentage of the undertakings market share under the agreement does not exceed the aforementioned thresholds. Consequently, an agreement having an anti-competitive object is therefore, by nature, an appreciable restriction of competition and falls within the scope of Article 101 of the TFEU.

In order to help undertakings, the new notice is accompanied by a document presenting the restrictions of competition which are considered to be restrictions by object.

(http://ec.europa.eu/competition/antitrust/legislation/deminimis.html).